


Metal & Dust

by Gefionne



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Ghost Drifting, Mako POV, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 45,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gefionne/pseuds/Gefionne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raised with a soldier’s stoicism, Mako Mori has never offered up her feelings very freely, even to those closest to her. But when she Drifts with Raleigh Becket, her innermost thoughts are laid bare. Despite the fact that their connection is supposed to be severed when the Drift ends, Mako discovers that with just a passing touch she and Raleigh can sense each other’s emotions. Now she finds herself more connected with him than she has been with anyone else before.</p><p>Mako x Raleigh AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Congruency

**Author's Note:**

> I'm my own beta, so please forgive any small errors. I will continue to search for them.

## Congruency

She always knew when he came onto the bay floor. The sudden tension could be felt, vibrating like a bowstring. Mako would watch as the heads of the techs snapped up and their shoulders straightened. Their gazes followed Marshal Stacker Pentecost as he strode across the shadow of the massive machine they worked to reactivate. Sparks showered down from the welders’ tools several stories above as Pentecost stopped beside Mako and looked up, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Marshal,” she said, bowing. There was deference and respect in her manner, but none of the nervousness the others exuded when the head of the Jaeger Program was present. “Good evening.”

“Miss Mori.” The corner of his mouth twitched up for a split second, betraying the expression he hid. It was a minute movement intended only for her to read.

Mako met his eyes with a smile in hers. The warmth of the greeting was evident to them both; it did not have to be overt. She had learned early in her life to read the smallest looks her adoptive father gave her, to communicate without words. It was not a true connection like those the Jaeger pilots shared—the unspoken understanding that was often, to outsiders, unnerving in its intensity—but it was a bond they had cultivated since the day Pentecost took Mako out of the orphanage in Japan and brought her to Alaska.

“You’re making good progress,” he said, his gaze fixed on Jaeger he had tasked her with restoring.

“She will be ready in one more week,” Mako said. “Five days if we work around the clock.”

“Make it three.”

Glancing down at the work log, Mako nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll oversee the shifts myself.”

“No,” Pentecost said. “Put Sato on it, at least for the next day. I need you run a compatibility assessment. Highest priority.” He held out a data drive no larger than her thumbnail.

Taking it, Mako slid it into the port on her tablet. A name and roster photograph appeared. As she looked up again, she knew her surprise and concern were clear. Pentecost’s expression was hard, but she could see the weariness in his eyes. There was no other option or he would have found it.

“I will start work immediately,” said Mako.

“I expect a full report in ten hours.” Without another word, Pentecost turned on his heel and headed back toward the lift that would take him to the Shatterdome’s Local Command Center, LOCCENT in the common parlance of base personnel.

Mako ignored the curious looks of the maintenance crew as she placed a call to Specialist Haru Sato. He had once been Japan’s top Jaeger engineer, but when the program had been decommissioned, Pentecost had snapped him up immediately to serve as technical lead for the maintenance of the remaining four Jaegers housed in Hong Kong.

Well into his seventies, Sato had worked on every generation since the Mark-1, but he had a certain fondness for the Mark-3 that endeared him to Mako. He was sharp-tongued and expected only the best from his technical crew, but he always spoke politely and respectfully to her.

“It is not every person that can look at a Jaeger and see more than a machine,” he told Mako once as they drank tea together in the level six observation deck that overlooked the Mark-3 hangar. Looking out at the Jaeger there, he continued, “You, Mori-san, can see into her heart.”

Mako tried to focus on the massive metal plate that covered the left side of the Jaeger’s chest, but her eyes moved inevitably to the head, where the two pilots would Drift with each other and, together, interface with the Jaeger. When she turned back to Sato, he was smiling.

“For as good as you are at hiding your emotions, Mori-san,” he said, “it is not difficult to see what you really want.”

“She needs new pilots,” Mako said quietly. “Why shouldn’t I be one of them?”

Sato sipped his tea. “Marshal Pentecost has expressed his concern at your inexperience, has he not?”

Mako nodded. “But the other cadets are untried as well. And my simulator score is the highest. Fifty fights, fifty kills.”

“You have a gift, Mori-san,” said Sato. “The Marshal sees it. We all see it. But the fear of losing a beloved child does not always allow a father to think rationally.”

Mako blinked, slowly setting her teacup down.

Sato put a hand on her shoulder. “Give him time, and perhaps when _Gipsy Danger_ is ready to fight again, your place will be with her in battle.”

Returning to the present, Mako listened as the line rang twice before it was picked up on the other end. “Sato-san,” she said as the image of the engineer appeared, “I apologize for disturbing you. The Marshal has pulled me from the floor for a high priority assignment. I will need you to oversee the work for the next ten hours.”

“I will be there in five minutes, Mori-san.”

Thanking him, Mako cut the connection. The screen on her tablet cleared, leaving only the name and picture of the man whose Drift compatibility she had been tasked to assess: Raleigh Becket.

Five years before, Raleigh and his brother Yancy had been one of the best Ranger teams in the Jaeger program. Their combat style was anything but by-the-book, which earned them both admiration and censure. The footage of their deployments had been a favorite of many of the cadets in Mako’s cohort at the Academy. The Beckets had piloted with a bold swagger that was riveting.

The entire program had mourned when _Gipsy Danger_ went down. While the Jaeger had been recovered on the Alaskan coast, neither of her pilots had been inside. Yancy Becket was declared killed in action. LOCCENT had a full record of his death from the vitals monitor. Raleigh, though, was still listed as missing.

It was absolutely certain that he had successfully piloted the Jaeger to the coast solo—a feat that made him an instant legend among the cadets—but communications had been severed in the battle with the Kaiju and there had been no feed on his vitals. By all accounts, his brain should have been fried by the neural overload of a solo run, but if that had been the case they would have recovered his body. He would have been comatose for a few hours and then suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage, as the first solo test pilots had back at the start of the war.

When the evac team had arrived, though, there was no sign of him. If there had been tracks in the snow, the high winds had blown them away. He had been presumed dead by most, even if not in the official records.

Pentecost’s request for a Drift compatibility assessment, however, could only mean one thing: Raleigh Becket was alive and was being considered for redeployment.

Mako’s brows knit. Rangers whose copilots had been killed were almost never redeployed. She remembered vividly the lecture her first instructor had given the cadets in the early days of their training.

“Drift compatibility isn’t something you can create through long hours in sim,” he had explained. “It’s a link between the most basic levels of your individual neural networks. If you’re into hoodoo-voodoo stuff, think of it as a fusion of the souls.” He shrugged. “Most everyone here will call that sentimental bullshit, though, because the compatibility runs in families.”

Tapping his temple, he said, “Family compatibility make sense. Similar genes, similar gray matter. It’s the chance matches that always make me shake my head a little and think that maybe the Greeks were onto something with the myth of twin souls. But whether you think of it as a lucky fluke of biology or finding your soulmate, you’ll know when it happens.

“The poor bastards who lose their copilot...I can’t even imagine it. They feel them die. That’s not something you recover from. And they remember it, so anyone who Drifts with them afterward feels it, too. That’s why sole survivors aren’t reassigned; they’re compromised, and Drifting with them could compromise the copilot as well.”

The Marshal’s decision to recall Becket was a risky one, but since all of the other Mark-3 pilots were dead, there was no one else he could turn to. Of course, he could have put together a new team for _Gipsy_ , but the problem of inexperience remained. The Mark-3 series was notoriously difficult to interface with, and having a pilot who had operated one before offered a significant advantage.

It would take a strong mind to Drift with Becket, though. Someone who could tolerate the memories of a beloved brother’s death and then overcome them. Not everyone in the program, no matter how capable, was prepared to do that. Mako wondered if she was. After all, she knew loss.

Her parents had died when Onibaba had made landfall in Tokyo, leaving Mako to fend for herself in the ensuing media storm. Seemingly all the reporters in Japan latched onto her story in the immediate aftermath of her rescue by Ranger Stacker Pentecost. Her grieving period was spent under the scrutiny of millions of people, and she had learned very quickly to mask certain emotions in order to appear strong in the face of the tragedy.

There had been an outpouring of support, but because she had no remaining family, she had been sent to an orphanage. By then the attention had shifted to other things as new Kaiju attacked and were defeated. She remained in the orphanage until Pentecost once again swept in to save her. He took her in and raised her himself.

Though the loss of her parents was a terrible ordeal, it could not compare to the trauma of feeling someone else’s death as if it were your own. Whatever derisive things could be said about Raleigh Becket and his tenure as a Ranger, there was no doubt that he possessed incredible neural and cognitive resilience. Mako had great admiration for that.

Tucking her tablet under her arm, she called up to the foreman of the restoration crew and told him that Sato would be taking over for her. The foreman, Lin Hong, gave her a brief salute of acknowledgement and then flipped the mask of his welding helmet back in place and returned to work. Taking one last glance at _Gipsy Danger_ , Mako turned and headed toward her office.

Her L-shaped desk was covered with large format blueprints, many of which were marked up with handwritten notes, some words in English characters and others in kanji.

When Mako had first arrived in Alaska as Pentecost’s daughter, she hadn’t spoken a word of English, and her adoptive father’s Japanese had been rudimentary at best. It was by necessity that they learned to communicate through looks and gestures.

At first, Mako had expected to live on base with Pentecost, but she spent only two weeks at the newly constructed Anchorage Shatterdome before she was sent to a prestigious boarding school in Juneau. The first six months were harder than any she had experienced in her young life, but by the time the spring term ended, she could carry on a decent conversation in English and was excelling at her studies. The literature and rhetoric courses presented the most significant challenges, but science and math came naturally to her. Numbers translated easily from her native language to her second. And she enjoyed finding patterns and solving proofs far more than examining esoteric texts.

Summer breaks were shorter than she would have liked, but she always looked forward to them because they were spent at the Shatterdome in Lima, where Pentecost had been transferred after several months in Anchorage. There she discovered her love of Jaeger tech. The massive machines fascinated her. Though she was not initially permitted on the hangar floor, Pentecost eventually relented and allowed her shadow one of the willing J-techs.

Santiago Rivera had become her friend and tutor. As a teenager, she had worshipped him. A man in his middle forties, he seemed to know everything there was to know about the Jaegers he oversaw. He had shown her how the robotics functioned and how the complex machinery interacted to make the Jaegers move with unparalleled power. Mako had absorbed it all eagerly. While her focus tended to be on the mechanics of Jaeger operations and maintenance, she was indelibly drawn to the pilots and their relationships with both their machines and each other.

The first time she had encountered a Jaeger pilot team she had been unable to look away. They were cousins from Mexico City. Their dark hair was close-cropped, their eyes a bright green. They spoke lightly accented English with Pentecost, clipped and formal as all the pilots were with her father. But it was the way they moved, how they looked at each other, that kept her captivated. From time to time, one would leave off midsentence and the other would simply pick up where his cousin left off. Often they moved in synchrony, standing up at the same time or making similar gestures.

Mako always watched them deploy when the coast was attacked. From the moment they entered their Jaeger, she hadn’t been able to look away. Despite their size and the loud mechanical sounds they produced, the Jaegers were beautiful to watch in action. Mako knew that once she graduated from high school, she would go directly into the Jaeger Academy with the intention of becoming a pilot herself.

She had done just that. Her aptitude for engineering was not overlooked, however, and she was made to follow the J-tech curriculum. Still, her combat scores were just as high as her academic marks. When she finished at the Academy, she was at the top of the class in all aspects of training. Her instructors had told her they had not seen a more promising pilot.

Her father, though, had been more cagey about encouraging her aspirations. More than once they had fought about it, but out of respect for him, she had always conceded. Still, her desire never waned. She kept up her skills in the kwoon and ran combat simulations as often as she could. She promised herself that if the opportunity arose for her to step into a Jaeger of her own, she would take it.

Pulling the chair out from under her desk, Mako sat at the computer console. She removed the data drive Pentecost had given her from her tablet and plugged it into the console. It contained not only Becket’s personnel file, but hours of footage of his kwoon sessions with his brother and of their drops in _Gipsy Danger_. There were even press interviews.

The Beckets’ careers as Rangers had spanned three years, from their first deployment off the coast of Los Angeles in 2017 to their last drop in Anchorage in 2020, the one during which Yancy Becket had been killed and _Gipsy Danger_ put out of commission.

It would likely take Mako more than half of the ten hours she had been allotted to look over the footage, but it was critical for her to understand how Raleigh Becket piloted if she was to choose the best copilot candidates for him. Bringing up a blank document for notes on her second monitor, she loaded up the recording of the Beckets’ first drop, sat back, and watched.

 

* * *

 

Seven hours later, Mako finally closed out of the last of the kwoon session recordings. It was 0230 by then and her body was stiff from sitting still for so long. Despite the discomfort, she was satisfied with the extensive notes she had taken. She felt as though she had a good grasp of how Raleigh Becket fought. It was possible that things had changed in the years since he had been on active duty, but she doubted the difference would be significant enough to render her appraisal inaccurate. Now she was ready to begin the process of selecting copilot candidates for him.

She got up briefly to stretch before settling back down at the console and bringing up the neural compatibility assessment interface. The first step in choosing a potential pilot team was to examine their brain wave patterns and identify the points of congruency. The higher the congruency, the better the odds for a strong Drift compatibility.

There was a roster of twenty-five candidates that she would have to run through the matching algorithm. She recognized some of the names from her cohort at the Academy. She had finished her training four years before and had been a part of the J-tech corps since.

Her first posting had been at Lima with Pentecost, but when _Gipsy Danger_ had been cleared for reactivation, both of them had gone to Anchorage to oversee the operations there. After the majority of the Shatterdomes had been closed, she had followed _Gipsy_ to Hong Kong.

Pulling up Becket’s neural profile, Mako loaded it into the assessment program. The computer rendered a visual representation in waves, the peaks and valleys unique to Becket. Mako typed a short command into the interface and brought up the first candidate’s profile. The algorithm would run it against Becket’s and see where they lined up. If they were a close match, it was likely that they would make a good team.

Executing the program, Mako waited for the process to complete. Eight minutes later, the computer announced the result: “Neural congruency twenty-two percent.”

An unacceptable outcome. Anything below fifty percent was considered a null result, an incompatible match. Mako set that candidate aside and loaded the next one. It and the one that followed also had low scores. She flagged them as negative and moved on.

The next three had potential, though the congruency was only about sixty percent. Jaeger pilots had Drifted well with fairly low standard congruency before, since true compatibility could not be properly assessed until both pilots were allowed to spar in person. And even then, there was no way to know how strong their connection would be before they actually Drifted.

Frowning, Mako put “possible” flags on those files. She hoped that there would be better options among the remaining candidates. Over the next two hours, the highest potential congruency she found was seventy-four percent. Rubbing her forehead, she went to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. The pot had been on the burner for over an hour, making the coffee bitter, but she drank it down anyway.

Returning to her console, she closed the latest candidate’s profile and pulled up a new one. She didn’t bother to read to the name, simply starting the matching process. The computer worked for less than a minute before Mako heard the first ping that indicated positive congruency. It was followed quickly by another and then another. She looked up sharply to see spikes of green on the monitor, showing matching neural patterns. Suddenly more awake than she had been in hours, she watched as the assessment completed.

“Neural congruency ninety-nine percent,” the computer announced.

Mako brought up the candidate’s personnel record. Her eyes widened as she read the name. It was her own.

She swallowed, tempted for a moment to rerun the process. From studying Raleigh Becket’s combat style, she knew that it could not be more different from hers. She prided herself on her controlled, understated form. She gave nothing away in the ring, never betraying her next move to her opponent. Becket was the opposite. He was a showman, flamboyant and unguarded. There was no doubt that he was a lethal fighter—a natural—but it was all predicated on his volatility.

The Becket brothers had not been formally trained in martial arts before they entered the Jaeger Academy, Mako recalled. That had been common when the war first began, but by 2016, when the Beckets arrived at the Kodiak Island training facility, most of the cadets were coming from the best dojos in the world. The brothers were unpredictable from the beginning, but it worked strangely to their benefit, allowing them to come out on top against cadets who, on paper, should have soundly beaten them.

Mako had been fighting since Pentecost had taken her in and had excelled at the Academy. Her combat skills had been lauded. She was consistent and precise, all but the antithesis of Raleigh Becket. It seemed unlikely that their Drift compatibility would be so high.

Despite her disbelief, Mako felt a thrill of excitement. The Marshal would not be able to ignore the numbers. Even if he had intended to keep her on the ground—inexperience, he said—there was no denying that she was the best candidate to pilot _Gipsy Danger_ alongside Becket.

Compiling her list of candidates—with her name at the top—she began to prepare the final report to present to the Marshal at 0500.

 

* * *

 

Though the architecture of the Shatterdome was entirely utilitarian, there was a certain Spartan beauty to Pentecost’s office. The sunlight from the single, narrow window bounced off the surface of the reflecting pools, brightening the space. The Marshal’s broad desk stood across the room from the window, allowing him a view of Hong Kong bay while he worked. The few papers that lay on the desktop were neatly ordered, lined up precisely an inch apart.

Pentecost was standing with one hand on the corner of the desk, holding a thin tablet in the other. Mako, who stood near the door, was waiting for him to finish reading her report. She was restless, almost trembling with nerves. Her blood was suffused with adrenaline, a mixture of fear and excitement. Her recommendations for Becket’s copilot candidates had been clear and concise: there were six potentials, but she was far and away the strongest.

“This is good work, Mako,” said Pentecost at last. “Well done.”

Holding her shaking hands at her sides, she bowed.

Setting the tablet down, Pentecost said, “You’re to notify all the candidates on this list immediately. Combat trials will begin two days from now at 0600.”

“I will prepare as well,” said Mako, struggling to keep her composure.

Pentecost’s mouth drew into a tight, straight line. “That won’t be necessary. You will not be in the trials.”

All the air rushed from Mako’s lungs as if she had been hit hard in the stomach. _No_. He couldn’t do this, not after all she had gone through to get to this point.

“I’m sorry, sir?” she said, her voice strained.

With a sigh, Pentecost put a hand on her shoulder. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, Mako, but this is for the best.”

Anger sparked to life in her breast. “You promised me!” she said sharply, slipping into Japanese as the tight hold she kept on her emotions threated to break. “You promised that I would be a pilot.”

“And you will,” he said. “When you’re ready.”

 “This is our last mission,” she said. “I will never have another chance. You saw the roster. Sensei, it should be me.”

A muscle in Pentecost’s jaw twitched at the use of that name. She had given it to him when she was a girl, when he had begun to teach her to fight, to stand straight, to be a soldier. It was an affectionate name, but also the proper title for an honored mentor.

All the skills he had helped her cultivate were meant to prepare her to step into a Jaeger, but now, when she finally had the opportunity, he had refused her.

“If any of the others had a ninety-nine percent congruency, you wouldn’t hesitate,” she said. “Why not me? Have I disappointed you?”

“It’s not about that,” he said. “The success of this mission is paramount.”

“And you think I would fail?” Mako asked, wounded.

Pentecost closed his eyes for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “You hide it well, but I think you are too focused on vengeance. You can’t carry that kind of rage into the Drift. You won’t be able to think clearly, objectively. It could get you and your copilot killed. And I can’t afford to lose anyone.”

“I can control my mind,” she said, slightly ashamed of how desperate she sounded. “You taught me how.”

Pentecost’s reply was sharp, “This discussion is over. You have your orders, Mori-san, and I expect them to be followed.” Going to the far wall, he lifted his coat off the peg it hung from and shrugged it on.

Mako knew he was headed out to the helicopter that would take him to wherever Raleigh Becket was waiting to be retrieved.

“I expect to be back here by tomorrow afternoon,” Pentecost said. “Make sure the candidates are briefed before then.”

Though disappointment still stabbed at her, Mako had no choice but to bow once again in acknowledgement.

Gesturing toward the door, Pentecost dismissed her wordlessly. As she strode past him, she stared down at the floor ahead of her, unable to meet his eyes. She had no desire for him to see the pain in hers.

“Mako,” he said as he closed the door. “Make sure to get some rest today.”

“Yes, Marshal,” she said. And then she fled.

 

* * *

 

It took no more than ten minutes to compose and send a message to the copilot candidates telling them to report to the kwoon in two days for combat trials. Mako had been forced to rein in her emotions as she wrote it, unwilling to allow her frustration to bleed into the prose. Once it was done, she sat back in her chair and sighed.

Though she was tired, she was far too restless to sleep. She considered going to _Gipsy Danger_ ’s hangar to take over for Sato, but she wasn’t yet prepared to face the Jaeger that she had invested so much in and yet would never pilot. Instead, she gathered the few things she would need and made her way to one of her preferred refuges: the simulation room.

When the Shatterdome had been fully operational, the simulator would have been occupied almost twenty-four hours a day, but since the program’s funding had been cut and its personnel reduced to a skeleton crew, there was rarely anyone there anymore. Mako liked the silence. It gave her the opportunity to clear her mind completely before going into the simulation.

As she had said to her father, she _had_ learned to control her mind. She meditated in the mornings before she went to the mess for breakfast and before sleeping at night. Remaining focused on the present was critical for keeping oneself aligned in the Drift. At least that was what she had been taught. She had never actually Drifted before. Only pilots ever established a true neural bridge.

That, of course, only fueled the rumors among the cadets at the Academy about what it felt like to Drift and what sorts of side effects it had. Some of the most infamous stories pertained to ghost-Drifting, the phenomenon where copilots experienced a connection even after the neural handshake was broken. There was some truth to it, but the things the cadets talked about hardly seemed possible.

Mako had heard everything from being able to hear your copilot’s thoughts and dreaming the same things to feeling pain when your copilot was hurt and even sharing sexual stimulation. One of the cadets in Mako’s cohort had sworn that a pilot had once told her that whenever his copilot had an orgasm, so did he. He didn’t even have to lay a hand on himself; it just happened. Mako had rolled her eyes. There was no doubt that pilots shared a connection, but she strongly doubted that it was anything like that.

Approaching the simulator’s control panel, she keyed in her personal parameters. She listened to the hum of the machine as it powered up. This model was no longer state-of-the-art, but it was familiar to her. She had spent many hours in it since she had arrived in Hong Kong.

It was rigged to look like the conn-pod of any Jaeger. The main support arm would clip into the back piece of her drivesuit. Two smaller arms would attach at her wrists and then to the feedback cradles that she would hold in each of her hands. Her booted feet would be secured to the gears that worked the simulated Jaeger’s legs. The drive apparatus was designed to suspend the pilot so that he or she had a full range of motion in combat, but was also held safely upright even when the Jaeger was thrown or knocked down.

While the simulator booted up, Mako stripped out of her clothes and slid into a basic circuitry suit. The fabric of the thin, black base layer was sewn with a synaptic processor mesh that would read her muscles’ electrical impulses and relay her movements to the Jaeger. The suit for simulations was significantly less sensitive than those pilots wore in combat, but performed the same function.

Over it she donned a layer of polycarbonate body armor: chest and back pieces, boots, greaves, and gauntlets. It, too, was not meant to see real combat, but it was necessary in simulation because it kept the pilot secured to the drive apparatus. The helmet that Mako pulled on was designed only to protect her head from impact; it did not contain the relay gel that was necessary for pilots to communicate with each other in the Drift. The gel was not required since she was not going to be Drifting in the sim. In these trainings exercises, she would have full control of the Jaeger.

Stepping onto the foot plates, she engaged the clamps. They snapped into place, followed shortly by those at her back and arms. Once she was locked into the apparatus, the digital HUD appeared in a flash of blue. It displayed the health of the simulated Jaeger’s systems, from coolant and fuel to muscle strand functionality.

“Pilot recognized,” said the computer. “Please select drop parameters and adversary.”

Bringing up the operational interface, Mako loaded the protocol for an enemy she had faced many times before: Knifehead, the Kaiju that had taken _Gipsy Danger_ down five years before. Though each Kaiju offered its own set of challenges when it came to combat, Knifehead was one of the most difficult to best. Mako had seen numerous Ranger cadets fall to it in sim. She, however, had continued to come back to it. It was one of her favorite fights because it required her to give everything she had.

The simulation began with her Jaeger—a custom build she had coded herself—standing along the Miracle Mile just off the coast of Anchorage. That wasn’t where the Beckets had actually encountered Knifehead—they had disobeyed Pentecost’s direct order to remain along the coast in order to rescue the crew of a small fishing boat and had intercepted the Kaiju en route—but no simulation was perfect.

In her helmet, Mako heard the computerized voice of the LOCCENT tech telling her the location of the Kaiju and what to expect in terms of its size and weight. She knew the numbers by heart: 96 meters in height, weighing 8,700 metric tons. When it came through the Breach in 2020, it was the largest Category 3 ever seen.

Taking up a defensive stance in her simulated Jaeger, Mako braced for the Kaiju to appear. A ping on her sonar announced its arrival from north-north-west. True to its name, Knifehead had a long protruding head that it had used to pierce _Gipsy Danger_ ’s hull and sever her left arm. The simulated incarnation followed that same pattern of attack, launching itself out of the water at Mako’s Jaeger. She sidestepped to avoid the assault, swinging her fist into the Kaiju’s neck. It roared and hit the water. It was back up a moment later, though, this time grabbing for her shoulders with its larger, dominant arms while the smaller, secondary arms scrabbled at the hull, claws screeching against the metal.

Mako caught the dominant arms mid-lunge and arrested Knifehead’s attack. Engaging the hard torque in her Jaeger, she flipped the Kaiju onto its back. She considered powering up her left-hand plasma canon, but she had used it to defeat Knifehead before. This time she wanted to try something different.

Tapping a command into the console, she unleashed the weapon she had added several months before: a chain sword. When she had first begun to learn about Jaeger combat techniques and battle technology, she had been surprised to discover that very few of the Jaegers were equipped with melee weaponry. They had their fists and numerous rockets and canons, but bladed weapons were almost completely absent.

When she brought this up to the J-techs, most had told her that they had proved too cumbersome to mount on the Jaegers. Blades required sheaths, and very few Jaegers had space to spare for them. They also added weight, which required more power and consumed greater amounts of fuel. Though the world’s governments had managed to divert most of the planet’s petroleum production to the Jaeger Program, the Marshals knew better than to squander it.

Mako had let the issue drop. Her interest in it, though, did not disappear altogether. In her free time during those first years out of the Academy, she had worked on a concept for a sword that was not a single blade, but many sections that could be retracted into the Jaeger’s arm like the links of a chain. Though her initial prototypes worked well enough when she tested them in simulation, she stilled faced the problem of weight.

It took her nearly eight months to calculate how she could change the design of a Jaeger’s torso and arm structure to support the sword without wasting fuel and sacrificing movement speed. She had seen most of her tests fail—ending in the destruction of the Jaeger by a Kaiju or completely depleting the fuel reserves before the fight was over—but she persisted until they began to succeed.

She had coded the sword into this particular Jaeger simulation to prove its utility and efficacy to Pentecost. He had seen both and approved the design for fabrication on the new Mark-5s. However, only one was ever built— _Striker Eureka_ —and it had been constructed before Mako’s work was complete. After the Jaeger Program lost its funding, she was certain she would not see the chain sword deployed…until she was put in charge of _Gipsy Danger_ ’s retrofit.

 _Gipsy_ had been damaged so severely in the fight with Knifehead that she required an entire rebuild from the waist up. Mako used the opportunity to redesign the distribution of weight to compensate for the chain sword. The Mark-3 now had a weapon on her right arm.

Mako’s simulated Jaeger was designed the same way. With her left hand, she reached out and intercepted Knifehead’s next attack. She dug the Jaeger’s fingers into the hard flesh of the Kaiju’s neck. It struggled and thrashed, but Mako put an end to that quickly as she drove the sword up through its head and into its primary brain. She twisted the blade for good measure before pulling it out. The Kaiju collapsed at her Jaeger’s feet, displacing hundreds of thousands of liters of seawater.

The HUD flashed green and the words “Successful Kill” flashed in the center of the display. It was followed by Mako’s kill count: fifty-one drops, fifty-one kills.

Her smile was grim. There was no one else in what remained of the Jaeger program who had that record. She was the best pilot in Hong Kong, and her father knew it. Yet, he still would not permit her to enter _Gipsy_ ’s conn-pod.

It would not have been wrong to say, “It’s not fair,” but that sounded like juvenile whining. The last thing Mako wanted to do now was to act like a petulant child. That would earn her little respect from anyone, especially the Marshal.

Frustrated, she ended the simulation and began the disengagement process. The drive apparatus lowered until it reached the ground again. The clamps at Mako’s back and wrists released first, followed by those at her feet. Freed, she powered down the sim. Pulling off her helmet, she set it down in the storage locker and set to removing her drivesuit.

Though she exchanged the heavy armor for her fatigues and sweater, she felt even more weighed down. Part of her wanted to curl up in her bed and allow herself to cry. Another continued to search for one more logical argument as to why she was the best copilot candidate for _Gipsy Danger_.  A third wanted desperately to take a page from Raleigh Becket’s book and disobey Pentecost by showing up to the combat trials in the morning ready to fight.

No matter how tempting the latter option might be, she knew she would never directly challenge Pentecost. He was her superior and her father. Both demanded her respect and compliance.

Resigned, Mako turned off the lights in the simulator room and headed back toward the elevator. Though she had no desire to sleep, she would honor her father’s request that she get some rest by going back to her quarters and making an attempt.

 

* * *

 

“The dorsal intake valve is still opening twenty milliseconds after the ventral,” said Mako, pointing to the schematic on her tablet. A line of system diagnostics ran beside it, showing the lag in response time.

Lin Hong, foreman of _Gipsy Danger_ ’s restoration crew, leaned over her shoulder and examined the numbers scrolling past. “I see it now,” he said. “I’ll tune it myself as soon as I get back to the floor.”

“Thank you,” said Mako. “It’s not going to keep her from deployment, but it will make a difference in coolant usage over time.”

Lin agreed, though both of them could detect what the other wasn’t saying: time wasn’t a factor. This was a mission with a short window. _Gipsy_ would only need to run defense for _Striker Eureka_ as they made a push for the Breach. None of the J-techs had to be concerned with long-term maintenance. However, neither Mako nor Lin could break the habit.

“Are you coming down to the hangar?” he asked.

“In a few minutes,” said Mako. “I have—”

The beeping tone of an incoming call on her tablet cut her off. Pressing the screen, she accepted it. “Mori.”

“Hey, Mako,” said Tendo Choi, grinning one-sidedly as his image appeared.

Tendo was the Shatterdome’s chief LOCCENT officer. He oversaw the Jaeger drops from Hong Kong, as he had done in Lima and Anchorage before that. He had a reputation for playing fast and loose with the hearts of women around base, but no one could hold a grudge against him for long. He was clever and charming, but deadly serious about doing his job well. He had been at the comm for Stacker Pentecost since he had come out of the Academy in 2016, and Mako adored him.

“Mr. Choi, what can I do for you?” she asked, returning his smile.

“How about dinner tonight?” he replied with a wink.

Mako rolled her eyes. According to Tendo, she was the only woman who had ever turned down dinner with him.

“It’s a black mark on my record,” he had said to her more than once. He would hold a hand over his heart as if she had hurt him. “And I’m starting to make a fool of myself by asking and getting refused over and over again. Put me out of my misery, won’t you?”

It was a game, of course. More than ten years her senior, Tendo was more like an eccentric uncle than a potential partner. He had known Mako since she was a girl in boarding school, and had, in fact, chased more than a few young men away from her in the years after she graduated from the Academy. He insisted that none of them had been good enough.

Mako hadn’t minded so much then. At eighteen, her focus had been on Jaegers, not boys. Still, there had been a few. The most serious had been a fellow J-tech that she met a couple of years after she got out of the Academy. Their work brought them together and gave them something to talk about. They would spend long hours in the hangars even after they were done for the day.

When they first slept together, it was in his office overlooking they Jaeger they were maintaining. Base life didn’t lend itself to long afternoons in bed, so they took what they could get. It was an unromantic introduction to sex, but Mako enjoyed it all the same. Yet, it remained at the periphery of their relationship. Their work was at the center. When he was transferred away, she missed talking to him about tech more than she missed being in his arms, his bed. She had not been with anyone else since.

“Not tonight,” she said to Tendo, once again refusing dinner.

He shook his head and sighed. “Fine. Down to business then. I just got a message from the Marshal. He wants you to meet him on the helipad in ten minutes.”

“I’ll go now,” Mako said.

“Take an umbrella,” said Tendo. “It’s pouring out there. Again.”

She nodded, said goodbye, and ended the call. When she looked up, Lin was eyeing her curiously.

Mako considered dismissing him without giving an explanation, but she was certain that the moment Raleigh Becket set foot in the Shatterdome, the news would spread like wildfire. She had no reason withhold the information any longer, especially from the head of the team working on the Jaeger he would pilot.

“The Marshal has found a pilot for _Gipsy_ ,” she said.

Lin’s brows rose. “I thought you—”

“No,” she said before he could continue.

“I thought all the Mark-3 pilots were…gone.”

“He’s the last one.”

“Who?”

When she told him, Lin’s mouth dropped open. “He’s alive?”

“Evidently.”

“And the Marshal’s bringing him here.”

Glancing down at her watch, Mako said, “He is, and I have to meet him in five minutes. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course,” said Lin, stepping away from her desk. “I’ll tell the drive crew to prepare a suit for him?”

“We’ll have to take new measurements, but yes, let them know.”

“Very good,” Lin said, giving Mako a curt nod. Turning, he opened the door to her office and disappeared into the hall.

She paused only for a moment to take a breath before reaching under her desk and retrieving the umbrella she kept there. She would pick up another for Pentecost on her way to the helipad. Pulling on her coat, she took her tablet and headed out.

Cool rain was coming down in sheets when she exited the lift onto the helipad. Members of crew that managed the V-50 Jumphawk helicopters that airlifted Jaegers into battle were working on the deck, most of them in rain ponchos and wearing protective ear muffs. Three techs were guiding one of the Jumphawks down onto the helipad as Mako arrived. Stopping just outside the circle that marked the landing zone, she waited for the propeller blades to slow enough for the passengers to disembark.

When the hatch opened, Pentecost was the first to step off. Behind him came Raleigh Becket.

The pictures in his PPDC personnel file showed a good-looking young man with short blond hair and a cocky grin. The man who descended the steps after the Marshal was quite unlike the pictures. He was dressed in shabby, weatherworn clothes. His green jacket was faded and patched in several places. The sweater he wore beneath it was stretched out and fraying at the hem.

His hair was darker than in the pictures, though perhaps that was because it was wet from the rain. It was longer, too, even to the point of being unkempt. He had a three-day beard and the fair skin of his face was slightly chapped. All of that could have been disregarded, though, if he still had the same look in his eye as he did in his roster photo. But his expression was no longer that of a conceited boy; he had a severe, weary look about him.

As he and the Marshal approached her, Mako held out an umbrella to Pentecost. Instead of opening it for himself, he handed it to Becket.

“Mr. Becket,” he said, “this is Mako Mori, one of our brightest. I put her in charge of the Mark-3 restoration program. She personally handpicked your copilot candidates.”

Mako looked up and met his eyes. There was curiosity there, though none of the smugness that she had seen in his interviews when he had been an active pilot. She had expected him to be much the same, had anticipated disliking his brash attitude. Yet, here he was quiet, even unassuming.

“I imagined him differently,” she said to Pentecost in Japanese.

The corner of the Marshal’s mouth turned up, but before he could speak, Becket said, “Hey.” When Mako turned to him, there was a spark of mischief in his face that seemed much more characteristic. Smiling slyly, he added in heavily accented Japanese, “Better or worse?”

Mako’s lips parted in surprise. There was nothing in his file that had indicated he might speak anything other than American Standard English. Of course, a personnel file did not give a full picture of anyone. It had been foolish of her to assume that she knew all there was to know about him from it alone.

“I apologize, Mr. Becket,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

He gave her a half smile and inclined his head respectfully. She did the same.

“Come on,” said Pentecost, moving toward the door. “We don’t have time to waste.”

Mako looked at Becket, expecting him to follow.

He held out a hand and said, once again in Japanese, “After you.”

Turning on her heel, Mako went. Becket fell into step with her, his boots falling heavily with each long stride. When they arrived in the lift, they both closed their umbrellas.

“I’ll take that,” she said to him, this time in English.

“Thanks,” he said, handing it to her.

She nodded and fell silent, listening as Pentecost introduced Becket to Doctors Geiszler and Gottlieb, the two remaining members of the PPDC’s research team. To say that they were unconventional was putting it politely, but whatever their social shortcomings, they were brilliant in their respective fields and indisputable assets to the program.

Becket seemed to be amused by them, especially by the tattoos on Dr. Geiszler’s arms. One was a rendering of the Kaiju Yamarashi, which the Beckets had taken down in the early part of their careers as Rangers. Mako had watched the footage of the battle several times. It was an impressive show of force and quick thinking.

As one of the largest Category 3 Kaijus on record, Yamarashi had been a significant threat for a single Jaeger. However, the Beckets had been able to identify and manipulate its weaknesses within the first few minutes of the encounter. Its size and length made it slower than smaller, less massive Kaijus, but it hit far harder. Though the Mark-3 Jaegers were not known for their speed, they were far more agile than the Mark-2s. The Beckets had capitalized on that, managing to avoid frontal, close range attacks. Instead they focused on flanking Yamarashi. It required an exceptional awareness on the battlefield that not all pilots possessed.

Glancing briefly at Becket, Mako wondered if he would still have that capability without his brother as his copilot. Ranger teams fought with distinct styles and patterns. Though it was not often that one pilot left his partner to join another, when it happened it yielded a team that fought quite differently than the first. It was likely that Becket and his new copilot would employ techniques that diverged significantly from those he and his brother had used.

If that was the case, Mako was uncertain as to whether he would be as effective in the field as he had been five years before. There was no doubt that Pentecost had taken that into consideration when he decided to redeploy Becket, but it was still a significant risk.

When the lift doors opened onto the lowest level of the Shatterdome, the hangar bay floor, Pentecost led the way out. As they strode through the busiest part of the base, they had to dodge small electric vehicles hauling equipment and parts for the various Jaegers as well as numerous personnel going about their work.

Hong Kong had once been home to thirty Jaegers and their crews—forty to fifty maintenance engineers, J-techs, and conn-pod experts per Jaeger—but now only four remained: _Cherno Alpha_ , _Crimson Typhoon_ , _Striker Eureka_ , and, of course, _Gipsy Danger_. Pentecost described them to Becket as they passed by, pointing out their pilots as well.

The Wei Tang brothers had been stationed in Hong Kong since they entered the Jaeger Program in 2015. The triplets were among the best Rangers in the world, having put down seven Kaiju over the course of their careers.

The Kaidonovskys, Sasha and Aleksis, had come from Russia several weeks ago. Though their Jaeger was the oldest of the four and by far the most difficult to maintain, it had been indispensable on the Siberian wall. In Mako’s opinion, it was one of the most resilient and adaptable Jaegers ever built.

 _Striker Eureka_ ’s pilots, Hercules and Chuck Hansen, had arrived from Australia only a few days earlier. _Striker_ herself had just been shipped in as of 0400 that morning.

Mako grinned as she spotted the Hansens and the bulldog they had brought along. “Max,” she said, kneeling down as he came running up to her. “Come here.”

“Don’t drool over Miss Mori,” Herc warned, following on the dog’s heels. To Pentecost and Becket, he said, “He sees a pretty girl and he gets all wound up.”

Mako scratched Max’s ears as Becket and Herc were introduced, or reintroduced. They had worked together once before, on a three-Jaeger drop in Manila in 2019. Mako had watched the recording of that mission during her assessment of Becket as well.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” said Herc, shaking Becket’s hand.

“Thank you, sir,” he replied. Mako did not overlook the slight hitch in his voice.

“Herc and Chuck’ll be running point using _Striker Eureka_ ,” Pentecost said. “Fastest Jaeger in the world. First and last of the Mark-5s.”

“Running point on what?” said Becket. “You still haven’t told me what I’m doing here.”

Pentecost took a breath. “We’re going for the Breach. We’re going to strap a 2400-pound thermonuclear warhead to _Striker_ ’s back. You and the two other Jaegers will be running defense for them.”

Becket’s brows rose. “Where’d you get something that big?”

The corner of Pentecost’s mouth twitched up in a smile that only Mako was likely to notice. “See the Russians back there?” he said. “They can get us anything.”

Looking over at the table where the Kaidonovskys sat with two short glasses of vodka in front of them, Becket gave a half shrug.

“Miss Mori will take you to your Jaeger now, Mr. Becket,” said Pentecost. “You have the rest of the evening to do as you please. Combat trials for your copilots start at 0600 tomorrow.” He nodded to Mako. “Make sure he can find his way there.”

“Yes, Marshal,” she said with a shallow bow.

“Marshal,” Becket called before Pentecost could turn away. “Sir, we’ve hit the Breach before. It doesn’t work. Nothing goes through. What’s changed?”

“I’ve got a plan,” he said. “I need you ready. That’s all.”

Becket hooked his thumbs onto his belt, his skepticism apparent, but he was wise enough not to say anything more to the Marshal than, “Yes, sir.”

As Herc and Pentecost strode out of sight, Mako said, “Mr. Becket, if you’ll follow me, I will show you to your Jaeger. She’s in Hangar Three, just this way.”

He nodded, allowing her to take the lead. She headed away from _Striker_ ’s hangar, rounding the corner toward the far end of the bay. There was a staircase on that side that would take them up to the observation level. It offered the best view of _Gipsy_ , or at least Mako thought so. She had spent more than a few evenings standing at the railing, watching the crews work on fitting new hull panels or performing engine diagnostics. It soothed her far more than spending time in the personnel rec room.

“Miss Mori,” said Becket. “When did things get this bad for the program? I mean, what happened to the other Jaegers?”

“It’s been difficult for almost two years now,” she said as they started up the stairs. “There are more and more Kaiju attacks, and the Kaiju are bigger, stronger. Most Jaegers were designed to handle Category 3 Kaiju at most. When the Category 4s started coming through the Breach, we were losing Jaegers faster than we could build them.”

She frowned deeply, remembering the day the Marshal had announced the closing of Anchorage’s Shatterdome…and Lima’s and San Francisco’s. All but Hong Kong’s were to be shut down immediately, all remaining Jaegers decommissioned.

“Seven months ago,” she said with considerable contempt, “our funding was cut in half. The United Nations believes that the coastal wall is a more viable option than the Jaeger program.”

“They can’t be serious,” said Becket. “Not after what happened in Sydney. If it wasn’t for _Striker Eureka_ the city would have been leveled.”

“I agree with you, Mr. Becket,” she said, “and so does the Marshal. That is why we are making a last push for the Breach.”

“You know anything about this big plan of his?”

She did, but it was not her place to discuss what Pentecost himself was not yet willing to reveal. Instead of an answer, she gestured for Becket to go ahead as they reached the top of the stairs. “There she is,” she said.

Becket stepped past her, his eyes wide. He sighed as he stopped at the edge of the catwalk. “Oh, my god,” he said, with no small measure of reverence. “Look at her. _Gipsy Danger_.” Leaning on the railing, he shook his head, though his gaze never left the Jaeger. “She looks like new.”

Mako came up beside him. “Better than new. She has a double-core nuclear reactor.” She smiled and said, fondly, “She’s one of a kind now.”

“She always was,” Becket said, staring across the hangar at the tremendous machine that he must have thought he would never see again. There was awe in his expression, but also sadness. Memories of his brother were inextricably linked with those of _Gipsy_. Seeing her had to bring just as much pain as it did happiness.

Mako took a step back, allowing him some privacy, but she kept her eyes on him. A hundred questions about what it was like to pilot _Gipsy_ flashed through her mind, but it seemed impolite to assault Becket with them now.

“How long has she been here?” he asked.

“Six months,” Mako replied. “She was transported here from Anchorage. Before that she was in Oakland. She had been stored in Oblivion Bay since…” She hesitated, unsure of how to refer to Becket’s last deployment. “Since she was decommissioned.”

“I’m surprised she wasn’t scrapped. The condition she was in when I took her up to shore…”

“I was not part of the team that recovered her, so I am not sure who made the decision to keep her intact, but it was a good one.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s amazing what you’ve done with her.”

Mako looked down, pleased at the compliment. “I have done my best, Mr. Becket.”

“Raleigh,” he said, smiling one-sidedly.

Mako swallowed, heat rising up her neck and into her cheeks. From watching the post-drop interviews in his file, she had concluded that he possessed a potent blend of good looks and charm, neither of which he neglected to put to use. She had objectively appreciated his attractiveness as she went through innumerable pictures and hours of kwoon sessions, but having one of his smiles turned on her in person made objectivity somewhat more difficult.

Not altogether certain that it would be wise to allow herself the familiarity of using his first name, she shook her head. However, before she could reply, she heard, “How do you like your ride, Becket boy?”

Both he and Mako turned to see Tendo Choi striding toward them.

“She’s got a solid iron hull,” Tendo continued. “No alloys. Forty engine blocks per muscle strand. Hyper-torque driver for every limb and a new fluid synapse system.”

Grinning, Becket dropped his pack at his feet and pulled Tendo into a hug, thumping his back. “It’s good to see you, buddy.”

“Good to see you, too, brother,” said Tendo. “It’s just like old times.”

“Not quite,” said Becket. “We’re a man down.”

Tendo sobered immediately. “Yeah, I know. We held a memorial service for him, for Yancy. We missed you there.”

“It was better I wasn’t,” he said. “Things were rough for while after he died.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe a little longer than a while.”

“I hear you, brother,” said Tendo, squeezing his shoulder. “But, I’ve gotta say, it’s damn good to have you back. How do you like the Shatterdome?”

“Honestly? It’s like coming home.”

Mako smiled at that. She had always felt the same when she returned to base during her school breaks.

Tendo nodded knowingly. “We’ve got a hell of lot of catching up to do, Raleigh. Once you drop you gear, come find me and we’ll have a drink or two.” He shot Mako a sly look. “Unless you want to stay in better company. I wouldn’t blame you.”

Mako hugged her tablet close to her chest, looking down in an attempt to hide her blush.

“I don’t want to bother Miss Mori any more than I have to,” said Becket. “I’m sure she’s got better things to do than show has-beens like me around.”

“Like being a Ranger,” Tendo said, winking.

Becket cocked a brow at her. “You’re a pilot?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“But she should be,” said Tendo.

“Oh, yeah?” asked Becket. “What’s your simulator score?”

“Fifty-one drops, fifty-one kills,” she replied.

“Wow. That’s amazing. You’re one of the candidates tomorrow, then, right?”

“I am not.” She hesitated for a moment, cautious with her phrasing, but then added, “The Marshal has his reasons.”

“Yeah, he always does, doesn’t he?” said Becket, shaking his head slightly. “But with fifty-one kills, I can’t imagine what they could be.”

Mako blinked up at him, trying to keep her expression impassive. His green eyes were earnest, his interest sincere. There was something almost disarming about him, as if he could see that she was withholding the full truth. Which, of course, she was. Thankfully, Tendo chose to remain silent on the matter.

“I should take you to your quarters,” she said. “I’m sure you would like to rest.”

“I wouldn’t turn down a hot shower.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” said Tendo, “but, man, do you need it.” He laughed as Becket made a face at him. “If you feel like having that drink, Becket boy, come on up. Mako knows where to find me.” He headed off, leaving them alone with _Gipsy_ again.

“Thanks for bringing me to see her,” Becket said. “She’s beautiful.”

Mako cast another glance at the Jaeger. “Yes, she is.” Turning back, she asked, “Are you ready to go? She will still be here tomorrow.”

“I hardly believe it,” Becket said, “but yeah, she will. All right. I’m following you, Miss Mori.”

 

* * *

 

Becket had been assigned the quarters across from Mako’s, so it wasn’t out of the way for her to deliver him there. Their rooms were simply appointed, with a narrow bunk, a small table with two chairs, and a bathroom. The shower wasn’t much, but at least it was private. Most of the base personnel only had access to the shared facilities in each dormitory. Rangers and senior J-techs, though, had their own space.

“Not bad,” said Becket as he went up the stairs into his room. “Better than the sheet metal cabins the company had for us on the wall.”

“You were working on the Wall of Life?” Mako asked from her place just beyond the threshold of his quarters.

“For the past two years, yeah,” he replied, dropping his bag onto his bunk. He unzipped it and pulled out a stack of photographs. “I worked some other jobs before that, but nothing worth mentioning. I made enough to eat and keep a roof over my head. I didn’t need much more than that.”

Mako nodded, though she could not imagine it. To go from the life of a Ranger—excitement, regular meals, even fame—to that of a laborer paid in ration books must have been hard to swallow.

“Did you not want to come back to the PPDC?” she asked. “You would have had a place here.”

“I know,” he said. “But I couldn’t. Not after what happened.”

Before Mako could stop herself, she said, “Then why come now?”

He picked up the photograph on the top of the stack. “It’s what Yancy would have done. If they needed him, he would have gone without a second thought.” He held the photo out to Mako. “That’s him.”

She had seen Yancy Becket before, heard him answer questions in numerous interviews, but this picture seemed to capture a side of him that he didn’t otherwise show. Whereas he was always the more serious of the two when they appeared publically, here he was grinning, his arm around his brother. His hair was slightly mussed, as if it had just been rifled. They both looked proud to be together, a true team.

Mako felt a pang of envy. She had never had a sibling, someone to get into trouble with or confide in. Her friends at school and in the Academy had been good company, but she never forged a lasting bond with any of them. Most she hadn’t spoken to in years.

Part of her had been counting on the friendship she would eventually share with her copilot. She had seen first-hand the depth of their connections and found herself longing for it. Her father and his copilot Tamsin Sevier had been closer even than family, or at least that’s how Tamsin described it. When she had gotten sick—cancer—Pentecost had taken Mako to see her in Hawaii, where she was undergoing treatment.

Tamsin had been bedridden by then, her once bright red hair gone. She kept her head wrapped in a colorful bandanna, but it was the only spot of color on her. She was pale and wan, her eyes sunken. In the pictures Pentecost had shown Mako, Tamsin had been lithe and strong, even big-breasted. Now her wrists were boney, all the tendons visible in her neck.

“Who’s this?” she had said when Mako, who had been hiding behind Pentecost as they entered the hospital room, appeared. Despite the pain that was evident in Tamsin’s face, she managed a smile.

“Tam, you remember Mako,” said Pentecost.

Recognition lit her green eyes. “Of course, I do. Hello, Mako.”

Though Mako’s English was still limited, she did understand the greeting. Bowing, she recited the words Pentecost had taught her on the airplane ride, “Hello, Miss Sevier. It is good to meet you.”

Her smile broadened. “You’re very bright aren’t you, Mako?”

Mako, not quite understanding, looked up at Pentecost. Taking her hand, he said in Japanese, “She says that you are very smart.”

That made Mako smile. Without thinking to switch to English, she said, “Thank you, Sevier-san.”

Tamsin raised a brow at Pentecost. He translated. Mako blushed, realizing her mistake.

“Don’t worry,” said Tamsin. “You’ll catch on quickly.”

After that, as she and Pentecost spoke rapidly and Mako had difficulty following along. So, instead of listening, she simply watched them. Pentecost had pulled two chairs up to the bedside, one for him and one for Mako. He sat closest to Tamsin, holding her hand as they conversed. It wasn’t a romantic gesture like when Mako’s parents had held hands, but it seemed to bring some of the life back into Tamsin’s face. She talked animatedly, waving her free hand to illustrate whatever it was she was saying. Mako had not seen her new adoptive father smile as much as he did while he listened to Tamsin, sometimes even cutting her off and making her laugh.

At one point, when Pentecost left to room to get Tamsin a glass of water, she turned to Mako and gestured for her to come closer. “Here’s the deal, Mako,” she said, slowly enough so that she could be understood. “I want you to do something for me. Stacker is a strong man, brave and proud. He’ll take good care of you. But even the strongest people need someone to take care of them, too. Since I can’t look after him anymore, I need you to. Can you do that for me, Mako?”

“Yes,” she said, hoping she had interpreted the right meaning.

“Good,” said Tamsin, reaching for her hand. Her fingers were cool as they clasped Mako’s. “I’m happy he has you now.”

“I am happy also,” said Mako, honest. “Sensei is good.”

Tamsin’s eyes shone with tears. “You call him ‘teacher.’”

“He will learn me to be a pilot like you,” she said, mixing up some of her English words. “Promise.”

“He always makes good on his promises,” said Tamsin. “And he’s a good teacher. You’ll be a great pilot someday. I know it.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to see it.”

Pentecost returned then, carrying three cups of water. He handed one to Tamsin and one to Mako. She dutifully sipped it while they finished their conversation. When Pentecost rose again, he squeezed Tamsin’s hand and said, “We’ll come see you again soon.”

“You won’t have the chance,” she said. “I told you what the doctors said. I’m just glad you came and that I got to meet your daughter.” She smiled at Mako.

Leaning down, Pentecost pressed a brief kiss to Tamsin’s forehead.

“Don’t worry about me, Stacker. I’ll be fine. And if you need me, you can always find me in the Drift.”

Tamsin died the next day, though Mako did not find that out until several years later, when she and Pentecost returned to Hawaii to visit her grave. As Mako lay the bouquet of white lilies she had brought on the headstone, she whispered, “We take care of each other.”

Looking down at the photograph of the Becket brothers, Mako couldn’t help but think that that had been true of them as well. The pain Raleigh must have felt when he lost Yancy should have broken him, yet here he was, prepared to step back into a Jaeger and allow someone else into his mind. That took extraordinary bravery.

Mako handed the photo back to him. “He was an exceptional Ranger. It would have been an honor to know him.”

Raleigh’s smile was marked with grief. “Yeah.”

“I will leave you now,” said Mako. “If you do want to go see Mr. Choi later tonight, I would be happy to show you to him. As he said.”

“I can probably find my way. Thank you, though, Miss Mori.”

“Mako,” she said. With a small smile, she added, “Raleigh.”

“Mako it is, then. I’ll see you around?”

She nodded, backing down the stairs. Even after he had closed the door, she stood in front of it. She had been prepared to respect Raleigh Becket for his skill as a Jaeger pilot and for his courage in returning to the conn despite the loss he suffered, but she had not expected to like him. But she found that she was starting to.

 

* * *

 

The mess hall echoed with voices as Mako arrived for dinner at 1930. She had spent the past two hours running diagnostics on _Gipsy_ ’s hydraulic systems. There were no problems to diagnose, as she well knew, but the work had kept her mind off of the fact that she would remain on the sidelines during the copilot trials the next morning. Examining _Gipsy_ made her feel connected to the Jaeger. It was not the true connection that her pilots would share when they interfaced with her, but it was close enough to satisfy.

She had only stopped when her stomach was aching with hunger. Closing out of the diagnostics interface, she had powered down her computer console and made her way up from her office in the hangar bay to the fourth floor mess.

Taking a tray, she joined the line to get it filled. The fare was similar to any standard military ration: potatoes, peas, sweet beans, meat loaf, and small, round rolls still hot from the oven.

It had taken Mako some time to get used to the heavy food they served in her boarding school in Alaska after what she had eaten with her family in Japan, but it had been so long now that she more often found herself craving pulled pork sandwiches than sukiyaki or udon.

Dinner in hand, she scanned the tables for an empty seat. She chose one beside a few of the J-techs that worked on _Cherno_. They greeted her warmly and asked how work on _Gipsy_ was progressing.

“She’s ready for deployment,” she replied as she poured herself a glass of water.

“I’m looking forward to seeing her in action,” said Vasily Utkin, lead diesel engineer for _Cherno_. “She was a damned impressive machine in her day.”

“Are you saying she’s not impressive now?” Mako asked, only half teasing.

“Not unless I want you to lay into me with specs _and_ fists,” he said, eyeing her.

She grinned. Very few of her fellow J-techs had combat expertise, but they all knew that she did. Though she wouldn’t ever use it against them, they liked to poke fun at her about it.

“Look,” said Anton Sokolov, circuitry tech, glancing up. “It really is Becket.”

Turning, Mako saw Raleigh descending the stairs that led into the mess. He had exchanged his tattered greet jacket for a standard issue navy blue sweater and fatigues. He had shaved, and it appeared that his hair had been trimmed. Though Mako was certain he could feel all of the eyes in the room on him, he seemed unfazed. He focused mainly on finding his way to the food.

“Raleigh,” called Herc Hansen. “Come sit with us.”

“Oh, I’m okay, thank you,” he said. “I’m gonna get some f—”

Herc handed him one of the trays he carried. “Ah, come on, there’s plenty of room at our table.”

With only slight reluctance, Raleigh took it and followed him to the table opposite Mako’s. “I haven’t seen bread in a while,” he said as they sat.

“Hong Kong,” said Herc. “Beauty of an open port. No rationing.”

Conversation around Mako trailed off some as the J-techs eavesdropped on the Rangers’ discussion. She was tempted to scold them, but was far too interested herself to bother.

“Raleigh,” Herc said, “this is my son Chuck. He’s my copilot now.”

“He’s more _my_ copilot,” said Chuck. “Right, Dad?”

Mako resisted scowling at his arrogant tone, though just barely. Chuck Hansen was an excellent Ranger, there was no doubt about that, but his attitude rubbed her the wrong way. He considered himself superior to almost everyone else in the Shatterdome. The J-techs who worked on his Jaeger, _Striker Eureka_ , had said more than once that he had told them off for all manner of inconsequential things. Though Mako was fond of Herc, she wished that he would intercede more often on behalf of those whom his son blatantly abused.

“So,” Chuck said to Raleigh, “you’re the guy, eh? You’re the guy who’s gonna run defense for me in that old rust bucket of yours?”

Mako’s knuckles turned white as she held her fork. Though she would not have hit any of the J-techs for jokingly disparaging _Gipsy_ , she would gladly have struck Chuck right in the mouth just then.

“That’s the plan,” said Raleigh.

Chuck dropped a piece of meatloaf to Max. “Good. So, when was the last time you jockeyed, Ray?”

“About five years ago.”

“What’ve you been doing for five years? Something pretty important, I reckon.”

Raleigh paused, chewing carefully. “I was in construction.”

“Oh, wow,” Chuck said. “That’s great. I mean, that’s really useful. We get into a fight, you can build our way out of it, eh, Ray?”

Mako didn’t bother to hide her frown this time. Meeting her eyes, Utkin shook his head.

“It’s Raleigh.”

Chuck shrugged. “Whatever. Look, you’re Pentecost’s bright idea. And my old man, he seems to like you, but it’s guys like you who brought down the Jaeger program. To me, you’re dead weight.” He got to his feet, pulling on a hat. “You slow me down, I’m gonna drop you like a sack of Kaiju shit.”

A number of scornful looks followed Chuck out of the mess.

“You can blame me for that one,” said Herc. “I raised him on my own. Smart kid, but I never knew whether to give him a hug or a kick in the ass.”

“With respect, sir,” Raleigh said, “I’m pretty sure which one he needs.”

Mako shot Sokolov a warning look as he snorted a laugh. Thankfully, neither Raleigh nor Herc seemed to have heard.

“Can I ask you something, sir?” Raleigh said after a moment.

“’Course,” Herc replied around a mouthful of potatoes. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, you were in the conn with a couple of other Rangers before your son, right?”

“That’s right. First with my brother Scott and then with a lad out of Nigeria named Akachi Diallo. We rode together three years before Chuck came out of the Academy. What about it?”

“I, ah, I guess I just wanted to know what it was like to Drift with someone else. Someone new, I mean.”

Herc set down his fork and took a sip of water. “It can be hard at first. You have to get a feel for the strength of the Drift. Me and Scott, we linked up quick and easy every time, but it took a couple of drops for Akachi and me to get on the same page.”

Raleigh’s brows rose. “A couple of _drops_? I thought LOCCENT didn’t send you out unless they were sure the neural handshake would hold.”

“There was never any doubt about that,” said Herc. “We had one of the strongest Drift compatibilities in the program. We just didn’t always agree on strategy at the beginning.” He shrugged. “But we worked it out. And so will you.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh said. “I guess we won’t have much choice. Do you know anything about the copilot candidates I’m supposed to fight tomorrow?”

“Not much,” Herc said. “Mako Mori’s the one to ask about that. Far as I know, she’s in charge of finding you a partner.”

Mako, who had been intentionally looking down at her plate as she listened to them, glanced up then. She swallowed, embarrassed, as she caught Raleigh’s gaze. His smile came and went so quickly that she wasn’t certain she had seen it at all.

“She led the restoration of _Gipsy Danger_ , too,” Herc continued. “Did a damn good job. Got your machine purring like a kitten.”

“It’s incredible work,” Raleigh said, speaking slightly louder, as if to make sure Mako could hear him. “I would have killed to have her on _Gipsy_ ’s crew five years ago.”

Mako blushed as the other J-techs turned their eyes to her.

“You would’ve had to fight every other crew in the ‘Dome for her,” said Herc. “She’s the best.”

Before her face could flush any deeper, Mako grabbed her tray and stood up. Refusing to look toward Herc and Raleigh, she made straight for the dish washing station and then to the door. When she got out into the hallway, though, she pressed her back against the cool metal of the wall and grinned until her cheeks hurt.

 

* * *

 

“Four points to zero,” Mako said, announcing the score after the bout between Raleigh Becket and the fourth copilot candidate. They had been working their way up from the bottom of the list since they began the trials that morning, a decision made by Pentecost. The Marshal stood beside Mako at the edge of the mats in the kwoon, watching each fight attentively.

The current candidate got back onto his feet and bowed first to Raleigh and then to the Marshal, acknowledging his defeat. As soon as he had stepped clear of the mats, the next candidate entered, spinning his bo staff with an unnecessary flourish.

Raleigh approached him carefully, his own movements much more controlled. From the very beginning of the trials, Mako had noted the change in how he engaged his opponents. He no longer wasted energy on overly embellished actions, instead focusing on sharp, pointed attacks that conserved his strength.

Perhaps it was part of his strategy because he had known he would be fighting a number of opponents for several hours, but Mako did not think that was his primary reasoning. She believed that he simply no longer had the desire to show off as he had when he had been a young Ranger.

In addition, he had not yet faced anyone who had truly challenged him. He was moving slowly to account for their shortcomings and allowing them to score on him out of what Mako could only assume was boredom. That did not bode well for the physical compatibility required for a successful Drift.

When he and his current opponent engaged, there was a flurry of assaults and countermoves, but it ended quickly and with Raleigh once again victorious.

“Four points to one,” said Mako, marking the result down on her tablet.

She exchanged a brief look with Raleigh as he waited for the defeated candidate to leave the mats and the next to take his place. She saw the challenge in his eyes: _This is all you’ve got?_

Pursing her lips, she turned away, focusing on the next candidate. Raleigh was a little late in directing his attention and it cost him a point. However, he recovered quickly and soon had the candidate on his back.

“Four points to two,” said Mako, frowning. The candidate should never even have had a chance to score those points. Raleigh was hardly making an effort and that bothered her. He should have been taking the trials seriously, even if he was not facing opponents as skilled as he was.

“Okay, what?” he said, taking a few steps toward Mako and Pentecost. “You don’t like them? I thought you selected them personally.”

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Every time a match ends you make this little gesture,” he replied, mimicking her displeased glower, “like you’re critical of their performance.”

“It’s not their performance,” she said. “It’s yours. Your gambit. You could have taken all of them two moves earlier.”

He cocked a brow, tapping his bo on the floor at his feet. “You think so?”

“I know so,” said Mako.

“Fine,” he said. “Then can we change this up? Why don’t you take a shot?”

Mako’s heart stuttered. Turning to Pentecost, she gave him an imploring look.

“No,” he said. “We stick to the cadet list we have, Ranger. Only candidates with positive neural congruency—”

“Which I have, Marshal,” said Mako. “Ninety-nine percent.”

“What?” Raleigh said, looking between them with a startled expression. “Marshal, why wasn’t she down here already? I’d bet anything no one else here has that level of congruency.”

A murmur passed through the crowd that had gathered to watch the trials.

Mako could gauge Pentecost’s rising anger by the small twitch in his jaw, but she refused to look away from him.

“This is not only about a neural connection,” he said to her, his voice low. “It’s also about a physical compatibility.”

“What’s the matter, Marshal?” Raleigh said, almost taunting. “Don’t think your brightest can cut it in the ring with me?” He eyes flicked briefly to Mako, the left lid moving just slightly in a half wink.

Mako looked up once more at Pentecost and waited, unable to breathe.

Taking her tablet from her hands, he said, “Go.”

As if released from a choke leash, she sprang down the stairs toward the mats. Adrenaline flooded her veins as she unbuttoned her shirt. Despite it, she took her time folding the shirt neatly and setting it to the side. Her boots and socks followed. Taking up a bo from the rack at the wall, she approached the mats. From across them, Raleigh nodded to her.

“Remember,” he said, “it’s about compatibility. It’s a dialog, not a fight.”

“I’m aware of the parameters of the combat trials, Mr. Becket,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes slightly at her use of his last name. “All right, but I’m not gonna dial down my moves.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then neither will I.”

Taking up a wide stance, she spun her bo around her shoulders. It was a showman’s move, but she was too keyed up to stay still any longer. Raleigh seemed to recognize that, but his own approach was much more understated.

They stood across from each other for a few breaths, each studying the other. Mako had an advantage, of course, having not only studied hours of video footage of his fights, but having watched him for the past hour. He had no idea how she fought.

However, the first point went to him when he took a quick step forward and brought the bo down toward Mako’s face. He did not hit her, but stopped a scant few millimeters from her nose. She took it unflinchingly. The moment Raleigh backed away, though, she surged forward, catching him in just the same manner. A flicker of a smile crossed his face as she said, “One-one.”

She drew her bo down by her side, preparing for the next attack. He moved before she could, though, snapping his bo against her ribcage.

“Two-one,” he said.

When they engaged again, the bout was longer, harder. For every swing Mako took, Raleigh answered it. As he stepped close to her, she spun away. Wood snapped hard against wood as their bos met. He guarded himself well, but Mako kept watch for the moment he gave her an opening to strike. It came a few seconds later, when he retreated a step and lifted his bo for a high blow. She covered the space between them in one long stride, earning a point with a strike at Raleigh’s brow.

“Two-two,” she said. “Better watch it.”

“Come on,” he said. “You’ve got more in you than this.”

With a cry, Mako stuck out again, only to be countered. Taking hold of her bo with both hands, she blocked several hits as she retreated. Deflecting a strike by letting his bo slide down hers, she came back on the offensive. She pushed him across the mats. His strides were longer than hers, so he could get away faster, but she pursued him relentlessly. When he did stop, moving to swing at her, she caught him under the arm and flung him over and onto the ground. He tucked and rolled, recovering deftly, but he was not fast enough to avoid the point Mako scored on his cheek when he came back up.

This time his smile was wider as she said, “Three-two.”

Backing up, she gave him space to rise. He did so slowly, but his next assault was sharp and fast. Mako replied in kind, circling around him as they charged and retreated, ducked and jumped. She could feel a rivulet of sweat trickle down between her breasts as they paused for a moment. She kept her guard up, though, prepared for whatever came next. As she reached out, Raleigh surprised her by grabbing her wrist and tossing her over his shoulder. She hit the mats hard on her left side, allowing him to score another point on her.

 _Three-three_.

She spun up onto her feet again, chasing him with determination. The next point would decide the match, and if she scored it, there would be no denying that she was more than ready to be a pilot.

Feinting out of the way of a forward jab from Raleigh’s bo, she swung at his feet. He sprang up to avoid it, but as he landed, he was unprepared for another strike at his legs. Tucking down, Mako slammed her shoulder into the back of his knee and sent him sprawling beneath her. She rolled up onto her knees, holding tight to his calf. She pulled back just as his hips bucked up toward her face.

“Enough,” said Pentecost. “I’ve seen what I need to see.”

Mako released Raleigh. He fell back onto the mats, but his eyes never left her. “Me too,” he said, touching her shoulder when he got to his feet. “She’s my copilot.”

Her heart was hammering from the fight, but as his fingers brushed her skin it jumped again. Turning sharply to him, she met his gaze. He gave her a small nod, an assurance that he was certain about what he said.

“That’s not going to work,” said Pentecost.

“Why not?”

“Because I said so, Mr. Becket. I’ve made my decision. Report to the hangar in two hours and find out who your copilot will be.” Clasping his hands behind his back, he glanced back at the onlookers. “Dismissed.”

Mako remained still as the crowd dispersed, taking deep breaths to keep herself from screaming. The last word has been said. She had no other choice than to accept it and watch _Gipsy Danger_ deploy as she always had: from a distance.

“He can’t mean it,” said Raleigh, staring at the place where the Marshal had just stood. “What is he thinking? Mako.”

She started as his hand fell on her shoulder again.

“You feel it, too, don’t you?” he asked her, stepping closer. “ _We_ are Drift compatible.”

Heat radiated from where he touched her. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to back away from him or lean in.

“Mako, talk to me.”

Shrugging his hand away from her shoulder, she sidestepped toward the edge of the mats. “There is nothing to talk about.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, following her. “And so is Pentecost. You can’t just give up. Mako, this is worth fighting for.”

She dropped her bo into its place on the rack. “Thank you for standing up for me, but this is not a fight we can win.”

He pushed a hand through his hair agitatedly. “We don’t have to just to obey him.”

Turning, she looked him in the eye. “It’s not obedience, Raleigh. It’s respect.”

He sighed. “All right, but will you at least tell me what his problem is? There’s something you’re not saying.”

“The Marshal does not have to explain himself to us.” Pushing past him, she said, “We have our orders.” She didn’t look back as she strode out of the kwoon.

 

* * *

 

The shower Mako took was nearly hot enough to scald her. She stood under the stinging spray, resting her forehead against the wall. The fight with Raleigh played through her mind. It had been a demanding match, but she had fought challenging opponents before. It was the way that they communicated during combat that had felt different from anything else she had experienced in the ring before.

There had been a rhythm between them, a sort of tacit understanding of what techniques would be utilized. It wasn’t a matter of knowing what to expect—without surprises neither of them would have scored any points—but it was more akin to knowing the key of a piece of music. The notes varied, but they always fell within a certain range if they were to sound in harmony.

Turning off the water, Mako reached for a towel. It was chilly outside of the bathroom, so she dressed quickly, pulling on her fatigues and undershirt. Over it she wore a tan sweater embroidered with autumn leaves.

She wasn’t expected in LOCCENT for _Gipsy_ ’s initial Drift test, but she did want to see it. Gathering up some papers and her tablet, she planned to go up to her office, which afforded a good view of _Gipsy_ ’s hangar. And from there she would be able to run live diagnostics on the Jaeger’s systems while she was fully active, an opportunity she had not yet had. Though it was nowhere near the same as being in the conn-pod, it was a vital part of her job as lead J-tech. Whatever happened, she would still perform that function to the best of her ability. She owed the program, her father, _Gipsy_ , and now Raleigh that.

At the thought of him, she considered going across to his room. She wasn’t certain what she would say to him when she got there, but she liked the idea of spending more time with him. Perhaps it was their compatibility in the ring or their mutual affection for _Gipsy Danger_ , but she thought that given time they might be friends.

Setting down the schematics she had picked up, she resolved to go knock on his door. Before she had gotten halfway across the room, though, someone rapped at her own. Hoping it might be him, she swung it open with smile. It dropped off her face when she saw Pentecost standing on the other side.

“May I come in, Mako?” he asked.

She stepped out of the way to allow him entry. He closed the door behind him, glancing cursorily around her quarters. The walls were adorned mostly with blueprints of _Gipsy_ , which had been her sole focus for half a year. She waited in silence for her father to speak.

“You did well today,” he said. “It was a good fight.”

“Thank you, Marshal.”

The corners of his mouth turned down at her formality. She knew that when they were alone she was not required to refer to him by his rank. Their conversations in those moments were between father and daughter rather than superior and subordinate.

Softening his expression some, he lifted a wrapped parcel he had been carrying in his left hand. “Mako, a long time ago I made you a promise. I said I would teach you to be a pilot and that when the time came, I would see you into your own Jaeger.” Drawing the wrappings aside, he revealed a single red shoe; a child’s shoe. “I intend to fulfill that promise.”

Mako reached out gingerly for the shoe she had worn on the day Onibaba had attacked, the day her parents had died. As she took it, she said in Japanese, “I will not fail you, Sensei.”

“I know, Mako. Now, get ready.”

 

* * *

 

The drivesuit room, which was located on the third level of the Hangar Bay Three, was accessible only by suit techs and pilots. It connected directly to _Gipsy Danger_ ’s conn-pod, which Mako would finally be entering with the singular purpose of locking into the drive apparatus and taking control of the Jaeger.

The entire situation still felt surreal even as she approached the door to the drivesuit room, its face emblazoned with _Gipsy_ ’s winged emblem. It hissed as it opened, indicating a pressure differential between the hangar and the decontaminated drivesuit room.

“Miss Mori,” said a tech in green scrubs, appearing from the other side of the door. “Come in. We’re ready for you.”

Following him inside, she found herself in a small, circular chamber. The only furnishings were two steel benches on opposite sides of the room. Behind them were lighted cases in which black circuitry suits hung.

“You’ll suit up in here,” said the tech. “When you’re ready, come through and we’ll fit you with your body armor.”

“Ranger Becket—”

“Is here,” said Raleigh as he strode into the room. “I got turned around in the…” He trailed off as he saw Mako standing across from him. “Hey.”

“Hello,” she said.

He took a step toward her, his teeth white as he grinned. “The Marshal changed his mind.”

“He did.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

“Then, let’s do this.” He glanced at the tech, who pointed to the suit on the right side of the door. He made his way over to it, pulling his sweater off as he went.

Mako balked, realizing that they were both expected to strip down and pull on their circuitry suits in this space. Having spent years in shared boarding school showers, she was accustomed to being naked in front of others, but there was something strangely intimate about this small ready room. But, she supposed that was fitting. She was about to know Raleigh better than she knew anyone else in the world.

“There’s no modesty in the Drift,” one of her instructors had told her years ago during her training. “You’ll know everything about your copilot, and it’s not just how he likes his breakfast. You’ll know what it felt like for him to lose his virginity, what kind of women he looks for, even what he thinks about you. You have to be prepared for that and realize that it might cause some tension. If it does, you’ll have to get over it or find another copilot. It’s about trust. If you can’t trust him, you’ll never make a good team.”

Blinking, Mako realized that she had not moved. She was staring at Raleigh as he pulled his undershirt over his head and started to unbuckle his belt. Whirling around, she focused on the case that held her circuitry suit. Of course, the glass reflected whatever was behind her, which was Raleigh. He was now kneeling down to untie his boots.

“You feeling all right about this?” he asked.

Guessing that he was talking about piloting _Gipsy_ rather than their shared ready room, she replied, “Yes. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”

“You always wanted to be a Ranger?”

“More than anything,” she said as she lifted her sweater up and off.

“Well, you seem like you were made for it,” he said. “It was a hell of a fight this morning. You’re one of the best I’ve ever faced.”

Mako felt a rush of pride. “Thank you.”

“How long have you been studying martial arts?”

“Since I was thirteen,” she said, continuing to undress.

“Why’d you start?”

“Because I wanted to be a pilot.”

“I should have guessed that,” Raleigh chuckled.

Mako asked, “Why did you join the Jaeger program?”

“Why does any eighteen-year-old kid join up? Jaegers are badass and so are their pilots.”

Mako laughed.

“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this,” he said. “In five minutes, you’re gonna be inside my head. You’ll see everything.”

Pulling on her circuitry suit, Mako felt a stab of apprehension. She had never offered up her feelings very freely, even to the lovers she had had. Her father could read her well, but she still had secrets that she kept from him. Raleigh, whom she had known for less than a full day, would discover them all.

“Mako.”

She turned to look at him again. He was zipped into his circuitry suit, which hid very little about his physical form. She knew her own revealed the same.

“You ready?” he asked.

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

Four techs were waiting for them when they arrived in the drivesuit room proper. Contoured, combat-ready body armor rested in padded containers. It had been custom machined to fit them in the intervening time between the copilot trials and their arrival.

“Miss Mori,” said a female tech with light hair, “you’re over here.”

She allowed the tech to guide her feet into heavy boots and fasten greaves around her calves. The chest piece guarded her front from collarbone to groin. The adjoining back piece was clipped into place and then screwed in.

“Applying spinal clamp,” the tech said. Mako kept herself still as the clamp was set in place. It latched onto her suit and would enable her to interface with both Raleigh and _Gipsy_.

The last section of armor was her helmet. It was heavier than those she had used in sim, presumably on account of the relay gel that was built into it. As the helmet was clicked into place, it formed an airtight seal.

“Reading flow of oxygen,” said one of the techs. “How do you feel, Miss Mori?”

“Good,” she replied, taking a deep breath.

“Excellent. If you’ll come with us…”

The door at the far end of the room swung open, revealing the interior of _Gipsy_ ’s conn-pod.

“Two pilots aboard,” the computer announced as she and Raleigh crossed the threshold.

“I’m gonna take this side if you don’t mind,” he said, going to the right side of the drive apparatus. “My left arm is kind of shot.”

“Sure,” said Mako. Generally, the Ranger in control of the right hemisphere was considered the dominant pilot. Considering rank and experience alone, it was fitting for Raleigh to take it.

Positioning herself on the left side, Mako waited for the techs to attach her drivesuit to the control arm. They did it with practiced efficiency, affixing her armor with large screws.

“Setting harness for test mode,” said Raleigh, typing a command into the console. Turning to Mako, he flashed her a smile.

A familiar voice came through the comm in Mako’s helmet. “Hey, guys,” said Tendo. “This is LOCCENT checking in for test run.”

“We hear you loud and clear, LOCCENT,” Raleigh replied. “Prepped for drop and awaiting the green light.”

“Copy that, _Gipsy_. Dropping conn-pod in ten seconds.”

“All right, Mako,” said Raleigh. “We’re not in sim now. This is for real.”

“I’m ready,” she said.

“ _Gipsy_ , you are cleared to drop in three…two…one.”

Mako braced herself as the conn-pod was released and started its descent. No more than a few seconds later, it slowed enough to connect with the body of the Jaeger. As the pod spun into place, the HUD sprang to life.

“ _Gipsy_ , this is Marshal Pentecost. Prepare to initiate neural handshake.”

“Okay, Mako,” said Raleigh. “Remember, don’t chase the RABIT. Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers. Memories. Just let them flow. Don’t latch on. Tune them out. Stay in the Drift. The Drift is silence.”

“All right,” she said, her voice trembling just slightly.

“You’re gonna do great.”

She hoped he was right.

“Rangers, this is LOCCENT. Initiating neural interface Drift.”

Drawing in a breath, Mako closed her eyes and let go.

The bombardment of memories began immediately. She was standing in a thick parka waiting for the school bus with Yancy, listening to him say that it was going to be okay. Then she was racing across an expanse of white, the roar of the snowmobile beneath her the only sound. As the elation of that ride faded, she found herself on the couch in Nora Mendelson’s basement, a whole different type of arousal pounding through her body as she felt the kiss.

From there she went to the Jaeger Academy, its kwoon familiar to her despite looking at it through different eyes. The scaffolding of the Wall of Life came next, accompanied by pangs of hunger and disappointment at another bland ration. And then she was stepping down out of a Jumphawk helicopter onto the landing pad at the Hong Kong Shatterdome. The rain was warm compared to the frigid winds in Sitka. The base looked like any other, but then she caught sight of a broad, black umbrella. As the figure carrying it approached, she recognized herself. The thought that echoed in her head—Raleigh’s head—was, “Beautiful.”

Mako was slammed back into the present, the memories replaced by a sharp awareness of the bodies that were now joined with hers. She could still feel herself clearly, but alongside her sensory responses were Raleigh’s and those from _Gipsy_. Relief and a welcoming warmth flowed through her consciousness.

_Hey, you doing okay?_

Her response was immediate: _It’s strange, but I’m all right._

The rush of Raleigh’s approval and admiration washed over her. _I knew you’d be fine_.

“Okay, _Gipsy_ ,” said Tendo, his voice jarring after the quiet of the headspace she shared with Raleigh. “You two are lining up nicely. Pilot-Jaeger connection strong and holding. Take her out, guys.”

The exchange between Mako and Raleigh to decide to move their left hand and then right was instantaneous. They moved in perfect synchrony as they drew their fists up into position to strike. She could feel the basic sensory receptors on _Gipsy_ ’s hull as her fingers tightened.

_Come on, Mako. Let’s show them what we can—_

His voice was cut off by an echoing call of, “Raleigh, listen to me!” It was Yancy. He was on the right side of the conn where his brother had been a moment before. His drivesuit was white and worn with use. All around her, Mako heard alarms sounding as _Gipsy_ ’s systems went critical.

“The hull!” she called, though it was Raleigh’s voice that came out. “It came through the hull!”

“Raleigh, listen to me!” Yancy repeated. “You need to—”

Searing pain exploded in Mako’s head as Yancy was torn from the conn-pod and into the darkness outside. Her senses were overwhelmed with fear, helplessness, and then…nothing. The familiar presence in her mind went dead, leaving her more bereft than she had ever felt in her life. It was as if she had been split in half down the center. The emptiness was agonizing.

At the periphery of her consciousness, Mako heard, “ _Gipsy_ , _Gipsy_ , you are out of alignment. You are both out of alignment.” But the voice faded in a tremendous crash.

Ashy dust filled her mouth as fear stabbed through her again. When she opened her eyes, she was standing in an alleyway in Tokyo, watching as the Kaiju Onibaba rampaged through the city. In her hands she clutched the red shoe her parents had bought for her that day. The debris on the street jabbed painfully at the sole of her bare foot, but she was too overwhelmed with terror to stop and put her shoe back on. Seeing a claw the size of a car land on the street in front of her, Mako raised a hand and screamed. Then everything went dark.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay, Mako. Just open your eyes for me.”

Light sliced into her vision. The devastation of Tokyo was gone. In its place was Raleigh. He was holding her against him, touching her cheek with his gloved hand.

“There you are,” he said. “How’s your head? Are you dizzy?”

“No,” she managed to say. “What happened?”

“We went out of phase. You got caught up in a memory.”

Mako’s heart sank. Her expression must have betrayed it because Raleigh brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead and said, “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.”

“Yancy,” she breathed, feeling tears sting her eyes. She had experienced the loss, the pain that Raleigh had felt when his brother had died.

“Yeah,” he said.

Bracing a hand on the ground, Mako pushed herself out of his arms. “But I chased the RABIT. I couldn’t control it.”

“You were doing fine until I took us out of phase. It’s not the end of the world. We’ll do better next time.”

Mako didn’t say it aloud, but as she looked at him she knew he could read her: _There won’t be a next time_.

He lay a hand over hers, squeezing her fingers. She was not reassured.

From behind her, she heard the door to the conn-pod open. Several techs appeared. They asked how Mako felt and checked the dilation of her pupils with penlights. Deciding she was well enough to stand, they helped her to her feet. A brief wave of vertigo washed over her, but she managed to hide it from the techs, who were already ushering her and Raleigh out of the conn-pod and into the drivesuit room. She didn’t remember the pod being lifted from _Gipsy_ ’s shoulders and back up to the docking level. It must have happened while she was unconscious.

She stood silently as the techs removed her body armor. Beneath it her circuitry suit was heavy with relay gel. It would be flushed out and decontaminated as soon as she took it off. When the techs were finished with the armor, they sent her back into the circular ready room to change. Raleigh was already inside, his circuitry suit unzipped and hanging around his waist. He had his left side to her, giving Mako a good view of the striated scars that cut across his bicep and ribs. He had gotten them on his last deployment. She could remember the agony of the skin splitting as if it had happened to her.

The deep cuts had been treated by the local doctors in the town he had been carted to after he had stumbled out of _Gipsy_ ’s ruined conn-pod onto a snowy shoreline. An old man and his grandson had found him and gotten him help. He hardly recalled the numerous stiches that had been sewn in to close his wounds. He hardly recalled anything from those first few days in the rural clinic.

“Do you have next of kin we can contact, son?” one of the doctors had asked. “Someone who can come for you?”

Raleigh had blinked slowly, thinking only of Yancy. “There’s no one,” he had replied.

“All right, son,” said the doctor, laying a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “You just rest now. We’ll worry about what comes next when you’re feeling better.”

He had spent another four days in the hospital before he was declared well enough to leave.

“My cousin owns a machine shop,” said the plump, middle-aged nurse who had been overseeing his care. Knowing he had nothing to his name, she had brought him a few changes of clothes, a sturdy pair of boots, and a thick parka. They had belonged to her son, she said. He had been killed in a Kaiju attack three years earlier. “He’s willing to take you on.”

“I don’t know anything about machining,” Raleigh had said. “I don’t know much of anything, really.”

“He’ll start you slow,” she said. “And it’ll put a roof over your head. You don’t have to stay if it’s not a good fit, but give it a chance. If you’re not going back to the Pan Pacific—”

“I’m not,” he snarled.

“Okay, kid, I hear you. My cousin’s shop is in the center of town. It’ll take you about an hour to walk there. He’s expecting you.”

She went to turn away, knowing that Raleigh had no desire to be coddled. In fact, he had been ornery with most of the hospital staff for the duration of his stay. He would be sorry for it later on in the years that followed, but at that moment he was too caught up in his grief to much care. However, as the nurse went to leave, he caught her hand and said, “Thank you, Laura.”

“No problem, kid. You take care, you hear?”

He nodded. It was the last he saw of her. He had gone to her cousin’s machine shop that day and had stayed on for a few weeks—long enough to learn to weld—but when he ended up spending more of his nights in the town bars than in his bed, his boss was hardly impressed. He didn’t exactly turn Raleigh out on his ear, but he wasn’t sorry to see him go. He gave him his pay—likely more than he deserved—and told him to be safe out there.

As he had told Mako, he had worked a number of other jobs over the next few years, including tending bar, clearing snow, and even working on a Kaiju blue cleanup crew. For about eight months, he steeped himself in beer and cheap whiskey. She had felt his later disdain for the self-pitying bender, but after experiencing the awful loss of his brother, she understood why he wanted to escape, to forget. Alcohol had dulled the excruciating memories and let him sleep.

As Mako examined him and the scars he bore, he turned and caught her eye. Lifting his left shoulder, he shrugged. It was both an acknowledgment that he could see what she was thinking and a dismissal of the hurt that those thoughts were indelibly tied to. Understanding, she turned her back to him and began to strip out of her circuitry suit.

“I should have warned you,” he said a moment later. “First Drifts are rough.”

“I didn’t think it would be easy,” she said. “But I really didn’t know what to expect.”

“Neither did I, honestly. I’ve never Drifted with anyone but my brother.”

“Herc said it would be different,” Mako said, not bothering to try to conceal the fact that she had been listening to their conversation in the mess the night before. After all, Raleigh knew that she had been. He had seen it in her memories.

“It was. Since we only shared a couple of memories it was hard to find similarities to latch onto,” he said. “That’s how it used to be with Yancy. We’d hit on something we both remembered and it would ease us right into the Drift. Wasn’t quite like that with you.”

“But we did find one,” said Mako. “When we first saw each other.” She didn’t point out that she had heard his remark about her appearance—her beauty—at that moment.

“And after that the Drift was strong,” Raleigh said. “Strong as I ever remember it being.”

Despite her disappointment at her own lack of control when they went out of phase, she smiled. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“It’s the truth. Look, Mako, just because our first time out wasn’t easy doesn’t mean we won’t link up just fine next time.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

There was frustration in Raleigh’s voice as he said, “The Marshal can’t just ground you.”

“He can,” she said. “And he will.”

“No. You’re my copilot now. I won’t ride with anyone else.”

“You’re going to have to,” she said as she pulled her sweater over her head. Raleigh’s brows were drawn together when she turned to look at him. He wanted to contradict her, she could tell, but before he could speak, Tendo’s voice came over the intercom.

“Raleigh, Mako, the Marshal would like to see you in his office.”

Cold dread slid down her spine, but she squared her shoulders and made for the door. Raleigh followed behind her without a word. She was glad for the silence. She needed time to gather herself before facing Pentecost.

 

* * *

 

“Permission to be dismissed, sir?” asked Mako, her eyes stinging with unwelcome tears. She blinked to keep them from spilling down her cheeks, determined not to break down in front of both her father and Raleigh.

Pentecost’s expression was somber as he replied, “Permission granted, Miss Mori.”

With a curt bow, Mako turned on her heel and left the Marshal’s office.

She was off _Gipsy_ ’s crew effective immediately. Her father had told her that she had engaged the Jaeger’s weapon systems and nearly annihilated half the Shatterdome. Had Tendo not thought to pull the plug and disengage the testing protocol, she would have had the blood of several hundred people on her hands. She could have easily destroyed the other Jaegers and crippled the mission. Keeping her out of the conn made sense, even she could see that. It did not, however, temper the sting of having failed.

She considered going to her quarters to take a shower, but knew that once she had done that she would have nothing else to do but think back on her mistake. Brooding would do nothing to help. Instead, she resolved to keep herself busy. Though she was no longer a pilot, she was still the technical lead on _Gipsy_ ’s maintenance team. She had scans to run to ensure that the disastrous test run had not had any adverse effects on the Jaeger’s systems.

The observation level of the hangar was deserted when she arrived. That, at least, was a small blessing. Her office was to the right of the main catwalk—only a few steps away—but Mako found herself pausing at the railing to look out at _Gipsy_. Though her hull was patched in places and she was no longer as sleek as she had been when she was first built, she was still stunning. The conn-pod had been lowered again, making it seem like the Jaeger was looking straight at Mako.

“I’m sorry,” she said in quiet Japanese.

“You shouldn’t be.”

Raleigh. She was not surprised that he had followed her.

Stepping up next to her, he leaned his elbows on the railing. “There’s no point in beating yourself up. You gave it everything you had.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

He sighed. “It was. I could feel it. You’re meant to be a pilot, Mako.”

She eyed him. “You believe that, I can tell. But why? I performed poorly.”

“It _wasn’t_ your fault,” he said. “The kind of memory I threw you into would have pushed anyone out of phase. I screwed up, not you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Honestly, I don’t know why the Marshal didn’t take me out of the conn. Maybe I’m too messed up to pilot anymore.”

“No,” said Mako. “You’re the right man for this mission. I didn’t think so at first, but now…you belong with _Gipsy_.”

When Raleigh didn’t reply, Mako let the conversation lapse. They simply stood together, looking out at the machine they both loved.

“I don’t blame you for not telling me about Pentecost,” he said quietly. “About how he raised you. But, I’m glad I know. It makes more sense why he’s so determined to keep you out of the conn.”

“He’s seen a lot of Rangers die,” Mako said. “I have, too.”

“So have I. But it didn’t stop me or him or you. We all know the risks.”

“I wouldn’t want him deployed on this mission, either,” she said. “The odds of returning alive are not very high.”

Raleigh nodded. “He doesn’t want to lose you. I get it. But, he’s wrong. He’s not helping you. He’s holding you back. You’re the best copilot candidate in this ‘Dome. Look at your records…you were born to do this. God, I wish I had had your training. The kind of stuff I did as a kid…”

“Like riding your snowmobile and chasing girls?” Mako asked, cocking a brow at him.

He laughed. “Yeah, I did my fair share of both.”

“You had fun,” she said. “That was not a factor in my training.”

“You _were_ pretty serious,” he said. “You’ve got a kind of focus like I’ve never seen.”

She gave him a half smile. “You don’t do so bad yourself when you set your mind to it. You are an extraordinary Ranger.”

“If you’re trying to make me blush, you’re well on your way.”

“You’d still look good, even if you were red.” The words were out of her mouth before she could think to censor them.

Raleigh’s brows rose, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. “You think I’m good-looking?”

Mako felt her own cheeks burning. There was no backtracking from this, so she did her best to adopt a teasing tone, “You tell me. You’ve been in my head.”

He raised his hands, looking as innocent as possible. “Maybe I didn’t see that part.”

She shot him a look. “You saw everything. And so did I.” Slyly diverting the attention from her opinions of him, she said, “You have a type.”

“A type of what?”

“Women. You like brunettes with curves.”

Leaning his hip against the railing, he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Although,” Mako continued, “there weren’t a lot of them on the wall. You were…lonely.”

“That’s a polite way of putting it,” Raleigh said, looking half displeased, half amused.

“I’m sure you can find some here,” she said, enjoying teasing him. “After all, Rangers are in short supply and high demand.”

There were some on base—both women and men—that prided themselves on sleeping with Jaeger pilots. Mako had always been infatuated with the idea of _being_ a pilot, not being _with_ one. Had she met one she liked, it would not have stopped her, but she had no particular desire to get into bed with a pilot just to say she had.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Not in the market for that right now.”

“If you say so,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.

“Are you?” he asked, more serious than she had just been.

“No,” she replied, truthful. “There’s too much at stake in this mission to think about that.”

“Sometimes life or death situations tend to make it a priority.”

“Not always,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Raleigh, looking down at her. “Not always.” His eyes flashed darkly for a moment, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“I should go,” Mako said, though she wasn’t relishing the thought of sitting in her office alone. “I have work to do.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you later?”

“Sure.” By way of goodbye, she set her hand on the back of his. As soon as her fingertips touched his skin, she felt a sudden burst emotion: fondness, regret, hope. Shocked, she snatched her hand back.

“Whoa,” said Raleigh, his eyes wide. “Did you feel that?”

“I…” she started, though she wasn’t sure how to put it into words. “I think felt _you_. What you were feeling.”

He stared down at his palm, spreading his fingers wide. “You didn’t want to go, but you thought you should.”

Mako swallowed. She had been feeling just that. “You really were hoping you would see me later.”

He nodded. “This is crazy. Nothing like it has ever happened to me before.”

“Not with your brother?” Mako asked, though she knew the answer. She would have seen it in his memories if he had experienced it.

“No.”

“Do you think it’s a ghost-Drift?”

“Hell if I know,” said Raleigh, “but I’ve never heard of it happening after a single Drift.”

“Neither have I,” said Mako.

He glanced at her. “Can we do it again?”

Mako nodded and held out her hand. As soon as he took it, she felt a rush of wonder and curiosity. The emotions mirrored hers, but they belonged distinctly to Raleigh. It was as if they operated on a separate wavelength from hers, vibrating at a different, but harmonious frequency.

“Holy shit,” he said. Mako felt a rush of fascinated excitement. “This is amazing.”

Mako couldn’t help but smile at the spellbound astonishment in his tone and his mind. He was like a little boy with a shiny new toy. It was remarkably endearing.

Grinning, Raleigh threaded his fingers with hers. “You think my reaction is…cute? I just got caught a wave of that.”

Mako’s cheeks warmed, making Raleigh’s smile widen.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I’m glad you like me.”

“I know,” said Mako. “I can feel it.” As soon as he had spoken, she had felt affection radiating from him. It was not romantic per se, simply friendly. He was, just as he had said, happy to know that she liked him. That, in turn, pleased her.

“This can’t be a common thing,” he said, still wonderstruck. “I mean, we would have heard about it, right?”

“Right,” said Mako. “I’ve heard stories, but nothing exactly like it.” Thinking back to the rumors from the Academy, some of the things they had talked about seemed much more plausible with this kind of connection. If Raleigh could feel her emotional responses, he would be able to get a basic sense of what she was thinking, given that he knew the context of her feelings. If they were in physical contact with one another, they would, as in the Drift, be able to hide very little. Mako was equally fascinated and nervous about that prospect.

“You can let go if you want to,” Raleigh said, reading her. From him she felt understanding of her discomfort, but a general reluctance to release her. He liked knowing as much about her as he could.

That surprised her. She wanted to get to know him better as well, but his desire to explore what she thinking and feeling was extremely powerful.

“I’m prying,” he said. “I’m sorry. I can back off—”

“No,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. Wanting to test her ability to communicate a certain sentiment to him, she tried to send out waves reassurance that she was comfortable with their new ability.

“Okay, okay,” he laughed. “I get it.”

She smiled, slightly apologetic. “The stronger the emotion, the clearer it’s felt. This is…”

“Incredible,” said Raleigh.

Mako didn’t have to say anything for him to understand that she agreed.

“Do you think it’s permanent?” he asked. “Or just a temporary thing?”

She shrugged, letting the uncertainty flow from her to him.

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed. “If it starts to fade, maybe it’ll come back when we Drift again.” He squeezed her fingers as he perceived her unhappiness. “We _will_ get a second chance, Mako.”

It wasn’t much, but she did send a small measure of hopefulness in his direction.

 

* * *

 

It was fast approaching the lunch hour by the time they finally left the observation level. Mako had easily been able to pick up Raleigh’s hunger pangs. Amused, she had tugged him toward the stairs that would take them down to the hangar bay floor.

Though they were both reluctant to break contact, she could not help but think that seeing them holding onto each other would raise altogether too many questions among the Shatterdome’s personnel. Mako got the impression that Raleigh wasn’t particularly concerned about it, but he sensed that she was and was willing to concede. They let their hands fall to their sides as they reached the lift that would take them to the mess hall.

As they rode up, Raleigh asked her a few questions about her work rebuilding _Gipsy_. He wanted to hear all the details, he said, and she was more than happy to comply. They were discussing the reactor alignment when they stepped off the lift and ran almost directly into Chuck Hansen.

“Oi, I’ve been looking for you,” he snarled.

Mako bristled.

“I had the _pleasure_ of seeing your trial run earlier,” he continued. “You two are goddamn disgrace.” He pointed at Raleigh’s chest. “You couldn’t even manage to keep in phase for more than five minutes.” He hooked a thumb at Mako. “And don’t get me started on letting a rookie pilot. She’s got no control. There’s no way in hell I’ll let either of you taint my bomb run.

“So, why don’t you do us all a favor,” he sneered at Raleigh, “and disappear? It’s the only thing you’re good at.”

“Stop,” Mako snapped. “Now.”

Raleigh touched her shoulder, keeping her from taking a step toward Chuck.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Hansen said mockingly. “You just hold back your little girlfriend. One of you bitches needs a leash.”

He stumbled back as Raleigh hit him. He recovered quickly, though, catching Raleigh in the chin with a hard uppercut. Raleigh grabbed him by the front of his sweater and hit him in the cheek. Blood flew from his mouth, splattering on the floor at Mako’s feet.

“Apologize to her,” Raleigh growled, bouncing on his toes.

“Screw you,” Chuck spat as he took another swing. His fist connected with Raleigh’s brow, opening a cut above his eye.

Before Raleigh could lash out again, Mako caught his wrist and pulled him back. As she touched his skin, she felt the waves of fury and resentment rolling off of him. She did what she could to counter them, projecting calm in an attempt to soothe him.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” he snapped at her. “He owes you an apology.”

Chuck’s brow furrowed as he looked between them. “She didn’t say anything.”

Mako, still holding Raleigh’s wrist, thought as clearly as she could: _Don’t tell him_.

He must have felt her warning because he backed off, though he was still scowling. “Come on, Mako,” he said. “This isn’t worth it.”

“You’re right about that,” said Chuck. “ _You_ aren’t worth it.”

Mako tightened her grip on him as she felt Raleigh’s ire surge again. “Raleigh, please. Let’s go.” The feedback she got from him was begrudging acceptance.

“Fine,” he grumbled, allowing her to lead him down the hall. She abandoned the route to the mess, though, making instead for their quarters. As they rounded the corner, Mako released his wrist. Without even looking down, he caught her fingers and clasped them tightly. Anger still simmered through him, though beneath it was a vein of apology directed toward her.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” she asked.

She caught a hint of amusement at her reading of him. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “The Marshal won’t like it, and the last thing we need right now is another reason for him to keep us on the ground.”

Mako couldn’t refute that, but neither could she deny that she had wanted to punch Chuck Hansen in the face just as much as Raleigh had.

He laughed out loud at her feedback of indignation and some disappointment at not having acted on her impulse. “I’m sure he’ll give you another chance before this mission is over.”

She smiled. As they approached the door to her quarters, she made no move to let go of him. Instead, she said, “You’re bleeding. I’ll clean it up.”

“Thanks,” he replied as he followed her inside.

Mako gestured to one of the chairs. As he sat, she went to the sink and wet a washcloth. It dripped a little onto Raleigh’s sweater as she dabbed at the cut above his eye and on his lip. He didn’t flinch when she applied a few drops to iodine to both.

“That doesn’t hurt?” she asked. She could have simply touched her fingertips to his skin and felt his response for herself, but she wanted to stay in the habit of conversing out loud. She didn’t yet understand their connection well enough to want to reveal it to others.

“A little,” Raleigh replied, “but this isn’t my first time doing this.”

The corner of Mako’s mouth turned up. “Your brother gave you your first split lip.”

“Saw that memory, huh? Yeah, he got me pretty good for a ten-year-old kid.”

“You thought your mother would punish him for hitting you, but she boxed both your ears.”

“Not literally,” he chuckled, “but, yeah, I got six weeks of dish duty for that.”

“Yancy got the bathrooms,” said Mako.

Raleigh smirked. “Yeah, he did.”

Taking a butterfly closure from her first-aid kit, Mako applied it to the cut on his brow. It wasn’t deep enough to need stiches, but it should still be kept closed if it was to heal cleanly.

Finished, she absently smoothed the hair of his eyebrow. It was an unusually tender gesture, something that a mother or a lover would do, not an acquaintance of a day. Yet, it didn’t seem out of place. After all, they may have only met the evening before, but Mako now knew Raleigh more intimately than his parents or his girlfriends ever had. And she could feel the surge of warmth and appreciation coming from him as she traced the fine hairs of his brow.

“There,” she said. “You’re done.”

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist as she moved away. There was gratitude, affection, and a bit of disappointment at losing her touch. “You should get some rest,” he said. “You always need it after a Drift. I’m gonna go get some rack time, too.”

“Okay,” said Mako, marking her weariness.

Letting her go, he stood and went toward the door.

“Raleigh,” she said. As he turned, she tossed a granola bar at him. “Eat something.”

He smiled and thanked her. “Hey, Mako, I’ll be right across the hall if you need me. Don’t be afraid to knock.”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

“Sleep well,” he said as he stepped out into the hall.

When he was gone, she crawled into her bunk and pulled the blanket up over her legs. Closing her eyes, she felt herself descending immediately into sleep. She embraced the dark silence of oblivion, ready to lose herself in senselessness.

But then the dreams began.


	2. Compatibility

## Compatibility

Mako could feel the cold on her cheeks. As she opened her eyes, she saw that the dim interior of her quarters in the Shatterdome was gone, replaced by a ring of snow-capped trees, their whiteness stark in comparison. The open sky above her was gray, but not ominously so. A few flakes of snow spiraled lazily down, undisturbed by wind.

Despite the chill in the air, Mako was warm. She was dressed in a heavy parka and fleece-lined pants. Both were hand-me-downs, of course, passed down to her by her older brother, who had outgrown them.

Mako caught herself. That wasn’t right; she had no brother from which to inherit clothes, or the slightly battered ice stakes she wore. Yet, she recalled him clearly: Yancy, thirteen years old.

Pulling off her woolen mittens, Mako examined her hands. The skin was light and slightly pink, the fingers long and nails bitten. An adhesive bandage was wrapped around one thumb. These hands did not belong to her, she recognized; they were those of a young boy.

“Raleigh, what are you standing around for? Scared to play me after all?”

Turning, Mako saw young Yancy Becket standing across the frozen pond holding two hockey sticks. He was grinning, his cheeks and nose ruddy with cold.

“Like hell I’m scared,” said Mako, though she knew the words were Raleigh’s.

“If Dad catches you swearing like that, there’ll be hell _to pay_ ,” Yancy said.

Mako rolled her eyes and skated over. She snatched one of the hockey sticks from him. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a battered puck. “Loser washes the dishes tonight. Winner dries.”

Yancy held out his hand. “Deal.”

As Mako shook it, she glanced up just beyond the trees to where a small, rustic cabin sat. It was familiar to her. Her family—Raleigh’s family—came here every winter. It wasn’t far outside of Anchorage, where they lived and the children attended school, but it felt like it was a world away from the city.

The cabin had electricity, but only to light it and keep the water hot. The rest of it was heated by a black, potbellied stove in the center of the main room. The kitchen was just off of it, though it wasn’t equipped with the sleek silver dishwasher and hooded stove that their house in Anchorage was. Their mother sometimes bemoaned the loss—she was a Frenchwoman by birth and an excellent cook—but generally ceded control of the cabin’s kitchen to her husband Richard during their trips there.

Raleigh’s father couldn’t put together the elegant meals that his wife could, but he was a fair hand at bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches for lunch, pancakes for breakfast, and biscuits and gravy for dinner.

“They need the fuel to play outside all day,” he had said before, when Dominique, his wife, protested the lack of fruit or vegetables. Though she had frowned, Richard had put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. She couldn’t help but return his smile.

“Play to ten?” Mako asked as she dropped the hockey puck on the ice at her feet.

Yancy nodded. “Okay. Now quit stalling.”

Mako shot him a look, but then focused her attention on the puck. Yancy counted down from five. When he arrived at one, Mako reached out with her stick and slapped the puck away. She skated fast to keep up with it as it skidded across the bumpy surface of the pond. Yancy chased her immediately, his height lending him a slight advantage in reach. She was faster, however, and managed to evade his attempt to steal the puck.

Spinning away in a shower of shaved ice, Mako charged across the pond to where two tin cans marked Yancy’s goal. With a sharp slap, she sent the punk across the line and into the snowy slush at the bank.

Though the ice was at least four inches thick in the middle of the pond—their father had measured before they set foot on it—the edges were slightly softer. As Yancy went to retrieve the puck, he stayed a good foot from the bank, reaching out with his stick instead.

“One-zero,” Mako said, smiling triumphantly.

“Don’t start celebrating yet, Rals,” said Yancy. “You’ve still got nine more to go.”

The next point went to him, and the one after it. Mako kept her head, though, her determination to win only growing. She got possession of the puck in all three of the next face offs and scored three points in quick succession, making Yancy groan.

“When’d you get so fast?” he asked her, his breath slightly labored from having pursued her across the pond.

She shrugged, saying nothing about the days she—well, Raleigh—had spent on the ice at the West Anchorage Skate Center while Jazmine, his younger sister, was having her figure skating lessons. Yancy had almost always won when they played hockey at the cabin, but this year Raleigh had been determined to change that.

In the next two plays, Mako solidified her lead, bringing the score to six-three. Unable to resist the urge to gloat a little, she skated a few paces backward, crossing her feet one behind the other.

“Show off,” Yancy grumbled.

“Your dessert tonight says I score again,” Mako taunted.

“No way. Mom made chocolate cake.”

Mako’s stomach growled appreciatively. Putting hunger from her mind, though, she eyed the puck where it rested at the center of the pond. She tapped her stick on the ice impatiently. Narrowing his eyes at her, Yancy bent down for the face off. Mako, as the last one who scored, counted down.

“Three…two…one!” She slapped the puck away from her brother once again and made for his goal. She sailed through it easily, letting out a pleased bark of laughter as she skidded to a halt on the other side of the cans.

“Pretty slick,” Yancy conceded.

Leaning on her stick, Mako beamed. A moment later, the smile dropped off her face as she heard a loud crack. Her stick was the first thing to slide into the water. Since her weight had been on it, she quickly followed, breaking through the weaker ice at the edge of the pond.

The frigidness of the water stole her breath as she sank. It seeped through her parka, pulling her down. The pond wasn’t too deep at the edges, but with the extra weight of sodden clothes, she struggled to keep her head above water. Her lungs ached for air, but she kept her mouth pinched tight shut.

“Raleigh!” she heard, though the voice was muffled. “Give me your hand!”

Mako reached blindly up, hoping that Yancy could see her. Her own eyes were closed. Grasping feebly, she managed to catch hold of something. Fingers wrapped around her wrist, pulling hard.

She gasped as her head broke the surface. Yancy had a hold of her and was struggling to haul her out of the water. His skates were slipping in the snow, but he stamped his feet to plant them and heaved harder. Mako kicked and thrashed until she found a measure of purchase in the mud below her. Pushing the blades of her skates into it, she lunged up and scrabbled for the bank. Yancy fell as she surged toward him, landing hard on his back. Mako hit the ground at his feet, barely avoiding the tips of his skates. Both of them were fighting to catch their breath, and Mako was already starting to shiver violently.

“Come on,” said Yancy as he got up again. “You have to get inside _right_ now.”

Though she was shaking and unsteady on her feet, Mako managed to rise. She leaned heavily on Yancy, her arm around his shoulders. It wasn’t a long walk from the pond to the cabin, but every step was agony. Her limbs were stinging with the cold and wet. When they finally burst through the cabin door, Mako collapsed onto the wood floor in an exhausted heap.

“Yancy? Raleigh?” called their mother from where she sat on the sofa reading a book. As she saw them, she dropped it and ran over. “What happened?”

“We were playing hockey,” said Yancy. “He fell through the ice.”

“ _Mon Dieu_ ,” Dominique said, her face a mask of fear. “Help me get him undressed.” She fumbled with the zipper of Mako’s coat, dragging it down roughly. Yancy pulled Mako’s sodden hat from her head and then started unlacing her skates.

“Mom, I’m cold,” she whimpered.

“I know, darling. Can you take off your shirt for me?”

With numb fingers, Mako tried to unbutton the flannel. When she failed to make any headway, Dominique bushed her hands aside and did the work herself. When the shirt was gone, warm air from the stove buffeted Mako’s bare chest, making her sigh with relief.

“Mama?” said Jazmine, appearing from the bedroom. She was rubbing her eyes, clearly having just woken up from a nap.

“My darling, bring me the blanket on the sofa for your brother,” Dominique said as she pulled Mako’s pants away, leaving her naked.

Jazmine came over slowly, dragging a blanket behind her.

“ _Merci, petite_ ,” said Dominique as she took the blanket and wrapped it around Mako’s shoulders. She sent Yancy into the boys’ shared room for dry clothes. He came out with a set of long underwear and a thick pair of socks.

Mako was reluctant to shed the blanket even for a moment, but when she was dressed and wrapped in it again, she began to feel some heat returning. With Dominique’s help, she made her way to the sofa and lay down.

Taking a dishtowel from the kitchen, Dominique set to drying her hair. “You’re all right now,” she said, soothing. “Are you starting to feel warmer?”

Mako had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering, but nodded.

“Good. You just rest now. I’m going to fill up a hot water bottle for your feet.” To Yancy she said, “Your clothes are wet, too. Go change and I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate.”

Despite her sorry state, Mako perked up at that.

Dominique saw and smiled. “None for you just yet, darling. Once the shivering stops, I promise.” She pressed a hand to Mako’s brow. “You are very brave, little _kaiken_.”

Mako blinked up at Dominique, confused. She had just spoken in Japanese. Though Raleigh would later pick up some phrases from a fellow Ranger in the PPDC, he should not have been able to understand the language at ten years old. Nor should Dominique Lapierre-Becket have been able to speak it. And _kaiken_ was what Mako’s father—her biological father—had called her as a girl.

Masao Mori had been one of the only traditional sword makers left in Japan at the turn of the twenty-first century, and he had bestowed the nickname upon his daughter after he had seen her admiring one of the daggers—a _kaiken_ —he had made. The name, however, had no place in one of Raleigh’s memories.

“Mako,” said a man from the cabin’s kitchen. He, too, spoke Japanese. “You should be sleeping. You’re not well.”

Masao appeared from behind Dominique. He wore a white dress shirt and pressed slacks and carried a tray of tea. As he approached the sofa, Dominique rose, saying, in English, “I’ll get that water bottle now.”

“Okay,” Mako said distractedly. She was staring wide-eyed at her father.

“Would you like some tea, _kaiken_?” he asked as he set the tray down on the coffee table beside the sofa. “You should drink something if you’re feeling better.”

As Mako opened her mouth to reply, she coughed. Immediately, her chest began to ache, and it felt as though she couldn’t draw in enough air despite the ragged gasps she was taking between coughs. When, at last, the fit subsided, she had to wipe tears from her eyes. Her father sat down beside her and brushed a hand over the crown of her head and down the length of the braid that hung over her shoulder. Looking down, Mako recognized her own dark hair; long, as she had worn it as a girl. So, she was now back in her own body.

“Have some of this,” said Masao, holding out a cup of tea. “It will help.”

Taking it, Mako sipped at the lukewarm tea. It was a balm for her sore throat; it was raw from days of coughing. This had to be the winter that she had come down with bronchitis. She was nine years old.

When she had finished the tea, she set her hands back down on top of the sky blue comforter that was pulled up to her chin. The dark green blanket that Raleigh had been wrapped in after his fall through the ice was gone. So, too, was the sofa. Instead, Mako was now lying in her childhood bed. It was not in her room, though. It stood in the center of the Becket’s cabin. In the kitchen, Mako could hear Dominique humming as she stirred a pot of hot chocolate on the stove. It was a bizarre amalgam of Mako’s own memories and Raleigh’s.

“Is that better?” asked her father.

She nodded. “When will it go away, Papa?”

“The doctor said in a few more days the coughing should stop.”

“Will I be able to go back to school?”

The corners of Masao’s mouth turned up. “Very soon.”

“You want to go to school instead of staying home?”

Turning, Mako saw Raleigh—still a boy of ten—standing by the potbellied stove at the center of the cabin. He was dressed in the long underwear he had put on after falling into the pond and was looking at her inquisitively.

“I like school,” she said to him in English, which she had not spoken at nine years old.

He made a face. “You’re weird. Schoolwork is boring.”

“Sometimes,” said Mako, “but I want to see my friends. Don’t you have friends at school?”

“Of course.”

“And wouldn’t you miss them if you had to stay home for a whole week?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but if it meant I didn’t have to do homework for a whole week…”

“You still have to do it when you get back,” Mako said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Raleigh sighed. “But for the record, you’re still weird.”

It was Mako’s turn to shrug.

Her father, who was still at her bedside, glanced between her and Raleigh and smiled. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me, _kaiken_.”

“Okay, Papa.”

As Masao retreated, Raleigh took one of the rough-hewn chairs that stood by the stove and pulled it over next to Mako. “Want to play a game?”

“I’m not supposed to get up,” she said.

“You don’t have to. Do you like poker?”

Mako’s brow knit. She wouldn’t have had the slightest idea what poker was as young girl. She had learned it in high school in Alaska. However, as she looked at the cards in Raleigh’s hand, she said, “Sure.”

“Are you any good?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

He grinned. “Right answer. Dad says never to give anything away.”

Mako smiled back. Richard Becket had taught all of his children to play Texas Holdem by the time they were eight years old. From what she could recall, Raleigh didn’t always have the best poker face, but he was a good player despite it. Mako, on the other hand, had always kept her expression perfectly schooled no matter her hand. Her friends in school in Juneau had never been able to identify her tells.

“What are we going to bet with?” she asked.

Reaching for a mason jar on the coffee table, Raleigh showed her that it was full of small change. “We usually start with five dollars.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Mako.

Raleigh counted out three dollars in quarters, one in dimes, and one in nickels and pennies. “I’ll deal first. And let’s say the small blind starts at ten cents.” He laid down a dime.

Mako set down two dimes for the big blind. Raleigh matched it for the first ante. She did the same. He shuffled the cards and dealt himself two face down and then two to Mako. Taking them, she flipped the corners up to see what she had. Six of clubs and ten of diamonds.

“Call,” said Raleigh, putting another twenty cents into the pot.

Mako dropped two dimes in as well. “Call.”

Dealing the flop, Raleigh laid out three cards face up between them. They were the king of diamonds, six of spades, and two of hearts. The six gave Mako at least one pair, which was enough to keep her in the round.

Raleigh stayed in, too. “Raise,” he said, adding forty cents to the pot.

Mako called, dropping in three dimes and two nickels.

The next card dealt was the ace of hearts. Mako looked up at Raleigh, trying to read something in his face that might give away what he was holding. She couldn’t see anything of note.

“Call,” he said.

The ace didn’t give Mako much to work with, but she decided to take a chance on her pair. “Raise.” She put in three quarters and a nickel.

Raleigh called and matched her bet. She called it, bringing the total in the pot up to two dollars and ten cents.

“You must have something good,” he said, scratching his chin.

“Maybe,” said Mako. “Deal the last card and we’ll see.”

The final card he turned up was the ten of clubs. Mako almost smiled. That gave her two pair, a strong hand. They both called in the final round of betting.

“All right,” Raleigh said. Turning over his cards, he showed a jack of spades and a three of diamonds. Combined with the community cards, he had a king high.

“Nice try,” said Mako, “but I’ve got two pair.” She revealed her cards.

“Damn.”

“Raleigh Becket, mind your language,” Dominique said as she appeared from the kitchen. She held two steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said, looking contrite.

Dominique nodded and handed him one of the mugs. The other she gave to Mako.

Mako had first tried hot chocolate when she got to school in Alaksa. It had been the instant kind that was mixed with hot water, but she had loved it. The cocoa she had now was made with milk and real melted chocolate. Taking a sip, she sighed. It tasted even better than it smelled.

“Thank you,” she said to Dominique. “This is delicious.”

“Good,” said Raleigh’s mother, smiling. “There’s more if you finish that.”

When Dominique had returned to the kitchen, Mako turned back to Raleigh. “She’s so kind.”

His expression was sorrowful as he said, “Yeah. I miss her.”

“She died when you were sixteen,” Mako said.

He nodded. “Lung cancer. She had smoked since she was a teenager.”

Mako glanced toward the kitchen, but across the threshold she could now see four people standing in front of a headstone. Raleigh and Yancy, both tall young men, wore charcoal gray suits. Jazmine, who was twelve, had on a black dress and patent leather shoes. She stood beside Richard, who had his hand on her shoulder.

“Your father wasn’t the same after she was gone,” said Mako.

The ten-year-old Raleigh who sat beside her shook his head. “He started traveling more for work. We used to go with him on some of his trips, but he didn’t take us anymore after Mom died. Yancy mostly took care of us while Dad was gone. He should have been in college by then, but he didn’t go.”

“And neither did you,” Mako said. “As soon as you graduated from high school, you joined the Jaeger program.”

“I wasn’t cut out for college,” he said. “Jazmine was. She went to MIT. She’s an electrical engineer now. Works on hydroelectric dams, just like Dad.”

“You haven’t seen her in eight years.”

“I thought about visiting her,” he said, “but I didn’t have the money for plane tickets after…after Yancy died. She lives in Colorado.”

Mako reached out and took his hand. “When this is all over, you should go.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Raleigh said. He let Mako’s fingers fall back onto the bedspread. “You want to play another hand?”

“Sure, I—” A loud knocking interrupted her.

“I think you’ve got to go,” said Raleigh.

She glanced toward the door, but made no move to get up.

Raleigh grinned at her. “See you around.”

“Goodbye” was on the tip of her tongue, but before she could say it, the cabin faded away and she was pitched into darkness.

 

* * *

 

Mako’s eyes snapped open. The room around her was black except for the light of a digital clock on the console across from her bunk.

Her bunk. Her quarters. The Shatterdome. She was awake.

She read the time on the clock: 1703. She had been asleep for almost five hours. Sitting up, she rubbed her forehead. Despite her vivid dreaming, she felt better, refreshed after the strain of the Drift. Raleigh had been right; she needed the rest.

Another curt knock reminded her that someone was waiting outside. Rolling onto her feet, she hastened over to the door and pulled it open.

“Hey, Mako,” said Tendo Choi, grinning up at her from the foot of the stairs. He was wearing a mustard colored button down shirt and green suspenders, and he carried a plastic bag in each hand. He held them out with a hopeful look. “I didn’t see you in the mess at lunch, so I figured you might be looking for something to eat. Interested?”

The scent of ginger and garlic wafted up from the bags, making Mako’s stomach rumble. It had to be take-away food from one of the restaurants in the city. It had been months since she had had the chance to eat anything but the standard fare in the mess hall. Dumplings, sautéed vegetables, and noodles were irresistible.

“Well, Mr. Choi,” she said. “It seems that I’m finally going to have dinner with you.”

Tendo’s smile broadened. “Finally.” At the creaking sound of the door across the hall swinging open, he glanced over his shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind sharing my company, though.”

“God, that smells amazing,” said Raleigh as he descended the stairs toward Tendo and Mako. “And is that beer?”

“I, ah, figured you two could use a drink,” Tendo said. “After this morning.”

Mako managed to keep herself from wincing, though not by much.

Raleigh seemed less bothered. “I’m not about to turn down good beer, whatever the reason,” he said as he picked up the six-pack at Tendo’s feet. He smiled at Mako. “You coming?”

“Let me get my shoes.” She ducked back into her room and pulled on her boots. She laced them about halfway up, just enough to keep them on her feet, and then joined Raleigh and Tendo in the hall.

“I staked out a spot on the observation level,” Tendo said as he led the way toward the lift. “Best view in the ‘Dome.”

“There’s an observation level?” asked Raleigh. “We didn’t have anything that nice in Anchorage.”

“There wasn’t anything to see but snow. The ‘Dome was forty miles outside the city, or don’t you remember?”

“I do,” Raleigh said.

Mako did as well. The Alaskan authorities had decided to build their Shatterdome in a more remote location than most other cities. The idea had been to intercept the Kaiju coming up from the Breach before they even got within striking distance of Anchorage. It had turned out to be a very effective strategy. In the twelve years since the start of the war, none had broken through the perimeter.

“Can you see the stars from observation?” Raleigh asked.

“Not very well,” Tendo replied. “The light from the city blocks most of them out. Why?”

“I got used to seeing them while I was working on the wall. I guess I kind of miss it.”

Tendo cocked a brow. “You _miss_ the wall?”

“No. Just the stars.”

Mako had seen a number of his memories of standing in the shadow of the towering anti-Kaiju wall, looking up at the sky. Working night shifts was too dangerous, so the construction company shut down most of the lights after dark. Without them, Raleigh could see the brightness of the Milky Way and sometimes the Northern Lights.

As a boy, he had looked up at the sky and wondered if there was life up there. Perhaps there was, but instead of coming down from above, alien creatures had risen up from deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, through the Breach.

“We had some good times in the Anchorage ‘Dome,” said Tendo as they stepped into the lift. He pressed the button for the highest floor. “And in Lima, too. Right, Mako?”

She nodded. Glancing over at Raleigh, she saw that he was watching her. Though it felt perfectly natural to recall his memories as if they were her own, it was still strange to think that he had seen all of hers. He knew every detail of her summers in the Lima Shatterdome. He remembered the days she had spent learning the ins and outs of Jaeger maintenance and the combat lessons she had had with her father.

She had always appreciated those moments when they were together, when Pentecost removed his mantle of command and allowed himself to simply be her father. He was never the kind of parent who embraced her often or stroked her hair as her biological father had done, but she never doubted that he cared for her. And she felt as though she might be the only person who had ever seen him with his guard down.

Except now Raleigh knew.

Mako wondered how that might change his view of the Marshal. It was Pentecost’s responsibility to be a fixed point of authority in the Shatterdome. He intentionally maintained a cool distance from all of his personnel, ensuring that they respected (and perhaps even feared) him. To show weakness—fondness, emotion—might have compromised that, and Mako knew that he refused to give even an inch.

She had adopted some of his stoicism—a good solider had to—but she had never been quite so removed from her fellow J-techs and the maintenance crews she oversaw. She had no desire to act superior to them. After all, she didn’t think she was, even if she was the senior tech in the ‘Dome.

“As I recall,” she said, turning to Tendo, “you certainly had a good time. You went through eleven girlfriends in Lima.”

“In my defense,” he said, “I got dumped by half of them.”

“Probably because you were seeing two at once,” Raleigh said, wry.

Tendo laughed. “I’m a popular man. What can I do?”

Mako rolled her eyes as the lift came to a stop at the observation level. The doors slid open, revealing a small lounge fitted with a few tables and a pair of faux-leather couches. Windows lined every wall, providing a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Hong Kong and the port.

“Wow,” said Raleigh, going over to the nearest bank of windows. “Is that a Kaiju skeleton in the middle of the city?”

“The Bone Slums,” Mako said as she joined him. “Most of the refugees from the attacks move there if they can’t afford to buy new homes or rent in a nicer district.”

“That’s gotta be rough.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Tendo. He was unpacking the plastic bags onto one of the tables. “They take care of their own down there. And they have hands down the best takeout in town.”

At the mention of food, Mako turned away from the windows and made for the table. Raleigh followed her, pulling out one of the bottles of beer as he set the pack down. He eyed it suspiciously.

“This any good?”

“It is,” said Mako. “There are some very good breweries here.”

He twisted the top off and took a sip. “You’re right. It’s not bad. Though, I think at this point I’d say anything is good. It’s been two years since I’ve had beer. Standard ration books don’t really cover it.”

“You poor bastard,” Tendo said. “Had I known that, I would have gotten you a six-pack all your own.”

Raleigh chuckled. “The last thing I need right now is to get drunk. I mean, we shouldn’t really even be drinking one or two.” He caught Mako’s eye. “We could be deployed.”

No one said it, but the words hung in the air: _Not when the Marshal grounded us_.

“According to Dr. Gottlieb, we’ve got about eight hours before anything else comes through the Breach,” Tendo said.

“How does he know?” Raleigh asked.

Tendo handed him a set of chopsticks. “They math is beyond me, but he says he’s got it figured. There’s a pattern.”

“The attacks are accelerating,” said Mako. “They used to be separated by months, weeks, but now it’s less than a week.”

Raleigh shook his head. “No wonder the Marshal is pushing for the Breach. We could never keep up with that many attacks, even if we still had a full complement of Jaegers.”

“Exactly,” Mako said darkly.

“Look, guys,” said Tendo as he flipped open a takeout box full of rice, “dwelling on it isn’t going to change anything. Can we talk about something else?”

Raleigh reached for a plate and served himself some noodles. “So…the weather?”

“Fine,” Tendo sighed, resigned. “You want to talk shop? Talk shop.”

Mako wasn’t certain that she wanted to know the details, but she couldn’t keep herself from asking, “This morning, before we went out of phase…what did you see?”

“Exactly what I told you,” Tendo said as he picked up a dumpling. “You lined up well. The neural bridge was strong. I mean, _really_ strong. I don’t think I’ve seen a link that solid. Ever.”

“You’re serious?” asked Raleigh.

“Yeah. Your connection with Yancy was strong, too, but you guys…” He gestured between them with his chopsticks. “You’re on a whole different wavelength. It’s kind of uncanny.”

Looking at Raleigh, Mako sensed that he was thinking the same thing as she was. If their neural compatibility was so high, maybe that explained what they had felt earlier, the connection outside of the Drift. Her fingers twitched as she restrained herself from touching him to see if it was still there. He seemed equally tempted, but when his eyes flicked briefly toward Tendo, Mako could tell he wasn’t yet ready to tell even one of his closest friends about it.

“I hate it when Rangers do that,” Tendo said, glancing between them.

“Do what?” asked Mako.

“Have a conversation without saying anything. Leaves the rest of us out.”

“Sorry,” Raleigh said.

Tendo waved his beer dismissively. “It’s fine. Just talk out loud, all right?”

“Okay,” they both replied.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Tendo grumbled.

Raleigh playfully tapped Mako’s arm with his elbow. She smiled.

“You’d think you’d be used to it by now,” she said to Tendo. “You’ve been doing this for years.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know, but it’s just…never _not_ weird to watch two people match up like that. I mean, it’s amazing, but it’s—”

“Weird,” Raleigh and Mako finished for him.

Tendo frowned at them. “Now you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Just messing with you, man,” said Raleigh.

“You’re making it easy,” Mako said.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tendo. “If two are going to keep this up, I need another beer.”

Mako passed him one.

 

* * *

 

Three hours later, they had finished the beer and the food. Mako had gathered up the empty takeout containers and tossed them into the trash compactor.

“Well,” Tendo said, looking down at his watch, “I’ve got a shift in LOCCENT at 2130, so I’d better get down there.”

"Sounds good, man,” said Raleigh, stretching his arms up over his head. “Thanks again for dinner.”

“No problem, brother. You two riding down with me?”

“Sure,” said Mako. “I have some things to take care of in my office.”

“More?” Raleigh asked, brows raised. “You can’t run the same fuel system diagnostics _again_.” She looked up at him, surprised. He gave her a one-sided smile and tapped his temple. “You did them yesterday. I remember.”

Her cheeks warmed. “I did, yes.”

“Take a break, Mako,” Tendo said, clapping her shoulder. “ _Gipsy_ ’s running perfectly.”

No performance was ever flawless and there were always system tests to conduct, but Mako kept that to herself as followed him and Raleigh into the lift. They rode down to LOCCENT, where they bid Tendo goodnight. Mako’s office was on the floor below, but when she reached out to press the button for it, Raleigh caught her hand. As he touched her she felt a wave of amusement mixed with disapproval.

“You should listen to Tendo,” he said. “You can’t work all the time.”

“I don’t,” she said, sending feedback of slight irritation. “I just can’t think of anything else to do. I’m not tired.”

“Me neither,” he said, “but there are other things to do to kill time. Yancy and I used to play poker with the other Rangers.”

“Until they refused to let you two into their tournaments anymore,” said Mako. “You went undefeated for three full months.” She felt Raleigh’s rush of pride as he grinned.

“We had a run of good luck,” he said.

“And made a profit.”

He laughed. “Yeah, but we bought drinks whenever we all went out. It was fair.”

Mako knew that the Rangers in Anchorage hadn’t often gotten the chance to go off base and into the city, but they never wasted the nights when they were released from duty. Raleigh had colorful memories of the early parts of those evenings, but the recollections grew blurry as they progressed into the night.

Mako had not been properly drunk since high school, when she and a few of the girls in her dormitory had snuck in a bottle of rum. They had made it halfway through it before the first of them got sick. The night had ended not long after that.

“You’re pretty good at poker yourself,” Raleigh said. “Won more than your fair share of gum and nail polish when you were a kid.”

The corners of Mako’s mouth turned up. Since the girls at her boarding school hadn’t had pocket money to bet with, they had used contraband candy, make up, and magazines to fill their pots. Mako _had_ won a lot of those games, but she hadn’t taken all of her winnings. There were only so many eye liner pencils and chocolates she wanted.

“I get by,” she said.

Raleigh shook his head reprovingly. “False modesty. Miss Mori, I thought better of you.”

She gave a coy shrug in reply.

“So,” he said, swinging their joined hands, “how long has it been since you’ve seen a movie?”

Mako’s brows rose. It had been months, maybe even a year since she had sat down just to watch something. What free time she had she generally spent in the simulator or the kwoon.

“Come on,” said Raleigh. “How about _Godzilla_? And I mean the classic, not the remakes.”

Mako eyed him, knowing her skepticism and disbelief were flowing clearly across to him.

He gave her his best imploring look. “It’s my favorite.”

“Okay,” she said, shaking her head. She felt his genuine gladness as he pressed the button for their floor.

Despite the frivolousness of wasting two hours watching a monster movie, Mako couldn’t deny that she was looking forward to spending the time with Raleigh. His presence was comforting in a way that she was unaccustomed to. She had always found that she could relax better on her own than with others, but being with him didn’t require her to expend the same type of energy to keep up conversations that being with the J-techs did. She didn’t feel compelled to talk with Raleigh, especially now that they could communicate wordlessly. When they were together, there was a certain sense of stillness that Mako liked.

“I’m glad for the company, too,” he said. “Once you’ve been in someone’s head and then had them taken away, the worst part is the silence.”

“The loneliness,” said Mako. She could feel it at the periphery of his emotions. He was, as he said, grateful to be connected with someone again, but he still vividly remembered the emptiness in his heart and mind that Yancy’s death had left. There was fear there, too, at the thought of losing her as he had his brother. It was a fear that she was quickly coming to share.

“Don’t think about too much,” he said. “We’re here now.”

When the doors to the lift opened, they released each other’s hands, but walked side by side toward Raleigh’s quarters. Though she had never set foot in his room before, Mako knew it well. In his memories she had seen the photographs on the walls, their edges slightly worn from years of being carried. They were the only personal effects he had. Mako, too, didn’t own much beyond a few changes of civilian clothes and a tea set she had received as a gift. The photographs were dearer to Raleigh than any of her things, though.

He preceded her inside, gesturing to the bed. “Have a seat.”

Mako hesitated, still unused to such an intimacy, but she managed to push her discomfort aside and make her way over to the bunk. She sat at the edge and watched as Raleigh typed in a few commands on his console.

“They’ve got it,” he said, in reference to the film. “The Japanese version. The English dub is funny, but you can’t really appreciate it unless you watch it in Japanese.” He seemed so sincerely pleased that Mako had to smile. Tapping the display, he started the movie.

The grainy, black and white picture filled the screen, the title card hovering over a model of Tokyo. Mako’s parents had taken her to the movie theater fairly often as a child, but they hadn’t been particularly fond of older movies. In Raleigh’s memories, she saw him and Yancy lying on their stomachs in front of the TV in the Beckett’s living room as they watched _Godzilla_ for the first time. Raleigh was twelve at the time, and the arrival of the first Kaiju—a real city-destroying monster—was still three years away.

Coming over to the bunk, he sat next to Mako and started unlacing his boots. “You can take off your shoes,” he said. “Get comfortable.”

She flushed slightly, but reached down for her boots.

Raleigh tossed his pillow against the wall behind them and sat back against it. “We’ll have to share,” he said, keeping to his half of the pillow.

Determined not to let her apprehension show, Mako slid up next to him until they were shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. She was well aware that men generally ran hotter than women, but she was still amazed at the heat coming off of him. There were layers of sweaters and fatigues between them, but she could feel his warmth even through them.

For the first few minutes of the movie, they remained in that position, close, but not touching the bare skin that would have been necessary to read each other. Mako had the feeling that Raleigh was maintaining some distance on purpose, and she couldn’t deny that she was grateful. She wasn’t sure she wanted to him know exactly how much she liked the smell of standard issue soap clinging to him or how tempted she was she rest her head on his shoulder, if only to breathe in the scent of the soap mixed with his skin.

The pillow behind them was thin and didn’t offer much protection from the hardness of the wall, however, making Mako’s back hurt just a little. Shifting, she tried to relieve some of the pressure on her vertebrae. Without even looking down at her, Raleigh lifted his arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer against him. She tensed for a moment, but the ache in her back eased as she put more of her weight on his side. Relieved, she relaxed into him.

As the monstrous Godzilla descended upon Tokyo, she tentatively reached out and touched the back of Raleigh’s hand where it rested on his thigh. She let him feel her gratitude and contentedness. He tightened his hold on her in a brief hug. Leaning into him, Mako turned her attention back to the movie.

 

* * *

             

“Movement in the Breach. Double event.”

Mako sat bolt upright with a gasping breath. Her vision was blurry from sleep, but she blinked several times in quick succession to clear it. Looking across the room, she saw a red alert flashing on the console. A Kaiju signature had been detected. No, not one; two. The category rating was scrolling up on the display. Both Kaiju were Category 4, the largest on record.

“Mako?”

She started at the sound of Raleigh’s voice. Looking down, she saw that he was lying next to her, rubbing his eyes. A quick glance around the room revealed that she was not in her own bunk, but in his. They must have fallen asleep during the movie.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Kaiju alert,” she replied. “We need to get up to LOCCENT.”

“Okay, let’s go.” He was on the outside of the bunk, so he slid out first. Mako followed him, reaching for her boots. She laced them hurriedly and ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it.

When they got into the hallway, the alert was sounding loudly, summoning all personnel to their combat stations. “ _Cherno Alpha_ , _Crimson Typhoon_ , _Striker Eureka_ – pilots to the hangar for deployment.”

“Dammit,” Raleigh swore, voicing Mako’s own thoughts. _Gipsy_ wasn’t being called up.

Jogging toward the lift, they slipped in just before the doors closed. At least ten people were packed inside, and all of their eyes turned to Mako and Raleigh as they entered. She swallowed heavily, reminding himself to keep her expression schooled despite the self-consciousness that burned in her chest at their scrutiny.

LOCCENT was a hive of activity when they arrived. Communications techs were coordinating with the Jumphawk crews to get the Jaegers out into the harbor. J-techs were stationed at their consoles monitoring their Jaegers’ systems.

“We’ve got thirty minutes before the Kaiju—code names Otachi and Leatherback—make landfall, sir,” said one of the sonar specialists. “They’re moving fast.”

“Very good, Ms. Han,” Marshal Pentecost said. He was standing at the front of the room, looking out over the hangar bay with his hands clasped behind his back. “Mr. Choi.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tendo, though he didn’t look up from his console. Diagrams of each of the three deployed Jaegers were displayed on his screens.

“Neural bridge status for all pilot teams.”

“The Hansens are strong and holding, sir. Aleksis and Sasha are linking up now. _Typhoon_ ’s conn-pod has just dropped.”

“Get them into the Drift as soon as possible. I want _Typhoon_ and _Cherno_ on the Miracle Mile in fifteen minutes.”

“And _Striker_ , sir?”

“Keep them to the coastline. They are only to engage as a last resort. We can’t afford to lose them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Marshal,” Raleigh said, pushing his way through the techs. “What about us?”

Pentecost’s gaze was hard as he turned. “You two stay put.”

Raleigh took a step forward, but Mako caught him by the arm. Sliding her hand down, she brushed his fingers with hers. _There’s nothing we can do_ , she thought, hoping the feelings of caution and resignation would come through. _Don’t antagonize him. It will only make it worse._

His hand closed around hers, allowing her to feel his frustration. He conceded, however, and backed down.

When Mako looked back at Pentecost, his expression was dark. He glanced down sharply at their joined hands, his disapproval clear. Uncomfortable, Mako released Raleigh. His brows knit, but he allowed her to go.

Frowning, Pentecost turned away and refocused his attention on the hangar. _Cherno_ was being rolled out first, slowly moving across the bay toward the massive doors that led into the harbor. Eight Jumphawks would be hovering just outside, waiting to be hooked onto the Jaeger’s shoulders. _Cherno_ could have walked out into the water, but an airlift was faster. The Mark-1s had not been designed for speed. _Crimson Typhoon_ would have been able to cover the distance in time, but, again, airlifting would be simpler.

Mako watched in silence as _Cherno_ was rigged and carried up. _Typhoon_ came just behind. _Striker Eureka_ deployed after the others had left the bay. Mako could hear the radio chatter between Tendo and Herc Hansen, giving and receiving instructions. Pentecost repeated his orders for them to remain close to the city and only enter the fight if it became absolutely necessary. Neither Chuck nor Herc seemed particularly pleased about that, but they offered only a “yes, sir” in acknowledgement.

As _Striker_ left the bay, the windows of LOCCENT grew opaque and brought up video feeds from six of the Jumphawk helicopters circling the harbor.

“Kaiju are within ten miles of the drop zone, Marshal,” said Specialist Han from her post.

“ _Cherno, Typhoon_ ,” Pentecost said, “confirm your positions.”

“Holding forward perimeter,” said Cheung, the oldest of the Wei Tangs. “Left flank.”

“Forward perimeter, right flank,” Sasha Kaidonovsky said. “Ready and waiting to engage, Marshal.”

“Are you reading the Kaiju’s locations?” asked Pentecost.

“Negative,” said Sasha. “Do the choppers have a visual?”

“Negative,” replied one of the Jumphawk operators. “They’re still too deep underwater to see.”

“Maintain positions.”

“Single signature rising, Marshal,” said Specialist Han. “It’s within striking distance. Two thousand meters. One thousand meters. Five hundred meters, sir.”

“Rangers, do you have a visual?”

“Movement on the right,” this from the Wei Tangs. “Three o’clock.”

Mako watched as a massive Kaiju rose from the water and slammed its tail into _Typhoon_. She winced as the Jaeger was thrown back, landing hard. The Wei Tangs recovered quickly, getting _Typhoon_ back up on its feet and engaging the Thundercloud Formation, a triple arm technique that made use of their brutal saw-blades. Swinging into action, they slashed at the Kaiju, sending a spray of iridescent blue blood arching into the water.

As they moved in for another strike, Otachi sprang up and wrapped the talons of its forearms around two of the blades, crushing them. Undaunted, _Typhoon_ engaged its dorsal thrusters and flipped into a handstand. Mako’s eyes widened as the Jaeger’s lower half rotated one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and then descended back toward the sea. As _Typhoon_ landed, the Wei Tangs hurled the Kaiju over its head and away.

It was _Cherno_ that engaged next, charging toward Otachi and landing a brutal blow to its neck. The Kaidonovsky’s were known for their hard-hitting tactics, and this battle was no different. Using _Cherno_ ’s considerable weight, they pounded the Kaiju’s head. They got in a number of good hits, but were knocked back as Otachi reared into the air.

“LOCCENT,” said Herc Hansen. “ _Typhoon_ and _Alpha_ are in trouble. We’re moving in.”

Pentecost went to the comm. “You are to hold your ground. _Do not_ engage. We need you to carry that bomb. Do you copy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ _Typhoon_ ,” Tendo cried. “Watch your right side!”

His warning came too late. The Kaiju’s tail was already making contact with the Jaeger, throwing it off balance once again. The Wei Tangs did their best to hold their ground, but the tail slashed back up and then latched onto _Typhoon_ ’s conn-pod. Mako’s breath stuck in her chest as she saw the clawed appendage at the end of the tail dig into the pod. It was followed a moment later by the distress calls of the Wei Tangs.

“Jesus,” said Chuck Hansen, his voice crackling over the communications link. “We can’t just sit here and watch them die. Come on!”

“Screw this,” Herc said. “LOCCENT, we’re moving in now.”

Pentecost drew back from the comm, his mouth pinched tight. As he turned, he caught Mako’s eye. She could see his concern, his fury at the prospect of losing even one of his last Jaegers. She wanted to demand that he send _Gipsy_ out, that it might be their only chance, but she knew she could not. She and Raleigh couldn’t even manage to keep themselves in phase during a trial run. Sending them into combat could easily end with _Gipsy_ at the bottom of the harbor.

“Marshal,” said Tendo, “we’ve lost _Typhoon_.”

Pentecost slammed his fist down on the console. “ _Cherno_ , _Striker_ , take this thing down.”

Before they could respond, Mako heard Sasha Kaidonovsky calling, “Mayday, mayday. We’ve been hit with some type of acid. The hull has been compromised. We need backup immediately!”

“Come on!” barked Chuck Hansen. “Just hold on, _Cherno_ , we’re on our way.”

On the far left screen, Mako could see _Striker Eureka_ accelerating into a run. It was the only Jaeger in the world that could move that quickly. Across the harbor, Otachi caught _Cherno_ ’s right arm in its jaws, crushing the hull in burst of sparks. The Kaidonovskys landed another blow with their left hand, but from behind them another Kaiju shot out of the water. With a roar, Leatherback latched onto _Cherno_ and began to tear into it.

“Oh, god,” Raleigh said.

The Kaiju pounded into _Cherno_ ’s hull. Steam billowed up into the sky as water hit the reactor. _Cherno_ ’s conn-pod was below it, which kept the pilots out of reach of the worst of the destruction, but if the hull was damaged, water was undoubtedly seeping into it, too. Mako clenched her fists at her sides as she watched _Cherno_ tip backward into the sea. The comm chatter from the Kaidonovskys was abruptly cut off. Then the vitals monitors for them flat lined.

“They’re gone, sir,” said Tendo to Pentecost.

The Marshal said nothing, only watched as _Striker_ lifted Otachi and threw it several hundred meters across the water.

“Engaging air missiles,” Mako heard Herc say. On screen, _Striker_ prepared to fire from the battery beneath its chest plates. But before they could launch, a blinding flash of blue light burned across the monitors. A moment later, all of the power in LOCCENT died.

“What’s going on?” demanded Pentecost.

“It’s the blast, sir,” Tendo said. “It jumbled all the Jaeger’s electrical circuits.”

“They’re adapting, Marshal,” said Dr. Gottlieb, pushing his way past the onlookers from the back of the room. “This isn’t a defense mechanism. It’s a weapon.”

“Electromagnetic pulse,” Dr. Geiszler added, following Gottlieb. “It’s designed to take out _machines_. They know what they’re fighting.”

Pentecost’s jaw tightened. “Get _Striker_ on the comm.”

“I can’t, sir,” said Tendo. “The Mark-5s are digital. It’s fried. It’ll take me two hours to reroute the auxiliary. All the Jaegers, they’re digital.”

“Not all of them, Marshal,” Mako said, stepping forward. “ _Gipsy_ is nuclear.”

Joining her, Raleigh added, “Let us go, sir. This is the only shot we have.”

“All right,” said Pentecost. “Get to your Jaeger. You have ten minutes.”

Mako turned on her heel and ran toward the doors. The techs in the room cleared a path for her and Raleigh as they sprinted out into the hallway and onto the lift.

By the time they crossed the threshold into the drivesuit room, Mako had already stripped off her sweater and was unbuckling her belt. Bracing a foot on the bench on her side of the room, she untied her boot laces. Within a minute, she was zipping up her circuitry suit and heading toward the techs who would fit her with her body armor.

Everyone in the room moved with well-practiced efficiency. They applied Mako’s spinal clap and handed her and Raleigh their helmets. As soon as the relay gel was disbursed, they made for _Gipsy_ ’s conn-pod.

As Mako clipped into the drive apparatus, she felt a cold stab of fear. If she failed again, thousands, maybe even millions of people would die during the Kaiju attack. There were no other defenses now. If _Gipsy_ couldn’t manage to put down Otachi and Leatherback, they might rampage unchecked for days, as the first Kaiju had before the Jaegers had been built.

“Mako, look at me,” said Raleigh from his side of the conn-pod. She did. “Do you trust me?”

She didn’t hesitate as she said, “Yes.”

“You’re ready for this.”

She wasn’t so sure, but she tamped down the uncertainty and allowed herself a measure of hope. “Okay.”

He gave her a small smile. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

“ _Gipsy_ , this is LOCCENT. We’re preparing for neural handshake.”

“Go ahead, LOCCENT,” said Raleigh. “We’re ready.”

Taking a steadying breath, Mako closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Everything around her faded as she concentrated on the air filling and leaving her lungs. A meditative calm settled over her, and then…

She was in detention with Yancy at their middle school in Anchorage. Her bruised knuckles stung, but the two boys that sat across from them had black eyes and split lips. She exchanged a smug smile with her brother. Then she was in a dingy bar outside of Sitka. Her world was fuzzy and tipped perilously to the side as she stood up. The bartender said something to her, but she didn’t understand. As she stumbled out into the bitter cold of the night, she lifted her face toward the sky and saw the stars.

With a jolt she found herself staring out the window of the Hong Kong Shatterdome’s observation level. Behind her she could hear Tendo talking. As she turned, she was transported to Raleigh’s quarters. _Godzilla_ played in the background. She could feel a warm, still body nestled against her. Looking down, she saw herself. She was sleeping with her head against Raleigh’s chest. Gently, she—technically he—brushed her hair away from her face. Then he bent down and pressed his lips to the crown of her head.

Mako was catapulted back into reality. The memories dissipated into the quiet headspace that she now shared with Raleigh. It was more familiar to her this time, and she settled easily into the feeling shared consciousness.

Raleigh, inquisitive: _Hey. You good?_

Mako, reassuring: _Very good. I…like this._

Raleigh, warmly: _That’s how it should be. Means the link is strong._

“Looking good, _Gipsy_ ,” said Tendo, his voice coming through the comm link in Mako’s helmet. “Give us a wave, will you?”

Mako almost laughed out loud at Raleigh’s thought about flipping Tendo off, but managed to convince him that this wasn’t quite the moment to be joking around. Instead, they curled the fingers of _Gipsy_ ’s right hand into a fist and raised it.

“Pilot-Jaeger connection is strong and holding,” Tendo said, likely for the benefit of those in LOCCENT rather than Mako and Raleigh. They had a good sense that the link was solid. “We’re rolling you out to engage with your transport now.”

“Understood,” said Raleigh. “What’s the status in the city?”

“It’s not looking good. We’ve got one Kaiju on land. The other is still out in the water. It’s just prowling out there. Wait…ah, I think Herc and Chuck just shot an emergency flare at it. Crazy bastards. They’re going to get themselves killed.”

“Just tell them to hold tight,” said Raleigh. “We’re on our way.”

“You can tell them yourselves,” Tendo said. “Comms are still down out there. We’re on emergency backup in here.”

“Copy that.”

Raleigh, resolute: _All right, Mako. We’re going to take these Kaiju down._

Mako, hopeful: _Yes._

“Transport engaged, _Gipsy_ ,” said Tendo as they reached the edge of the hangar bay. “Good hunting.”

The drive apparatus swayed slightly as _Gipsy_ was lifted up and into the air by the Jumphawk transport team. It wasn’t a long flight out from the edge of the city to the Miracle Mile, where Leatherback was pacing around the unmoving _Striker_.

“We see _Striker_ and the second Kaiju,” said Raleigh as they appeared in the digital display of _Gipsy_ ’s HUD. “Disengaging transport now.”

Mako braced herself as the cables released and _Gipsy_ began to drop. She hit the water and slowed, but had several hundred more meters to go before striking the bottom of the harbor. When _Gipsy_ ’s feet were firmly planted, Mako and Raleigh took up a defensive stance.

Raleigh, determined: _We have to go for that thing on its back_ _before it can send out another EMP._

Mako, agreeing: _Let it come to us. We need to keep it away from_ Striker _. If she sinks, we might lose her._

He acknowledged her, and they held their ground, waiting for the Kaiju to seek them out. It didn’t take long. As soon as Leatherback heard their drop, it turned away from _Striker_ and, with a territorial growl, charged toward _Gipsy_.

Mako understood immediately how Raleigh wanted to attack. Just as it had been in the kwoon during their combat trial, there was a certain range of techniques and movements that made the most sense to both of them. If there was a discrepancy in how they wanted to proceed, it was settled almost instantaneously through their neural bridge. They moved and thought as one as they prepared for Leatherback’s assault.

They dodged the initial charge, feinting to the left at the last moment. As the Kaiju stormed past, they swung around and grabbed for the protrusion on its back that it had used to generate the first electromagnetic pulse. Sinking _Gipsy_ ’s fingers into the soft tissue around it, they pulled until the flesh began to give and then tore free.

Leatherback, howling with pain and fury, rounded on them and wrapped its forelegs around _Gipsy_. Mako was jostled hard as it shook them, but the drive apparatus kept her locked solidly in place. She saw a number of pressure gauges lighting up red as the Kaiju crushed them against its chest, but _Gipsy_ ’s systems were holding firm.

A g-force alert blared out as Leatherback spun and then tossed them toward the city. Raleigh’s feedback was a string of curses as they flew toward Hong Kong port. When they finally struck ground, the sound of screeching metal and crumbling pavement roared in Mako’s ears. Tucking and rolling, she and Raleigh managed to avert more serious damage and get _Gipsy_ back up on her feet. Even then, they skidded back three hundred meters into the center of a cargo container storage area before finally arresting her movement.

Raleigh, strident: _Come on! Let’s do this. Together!_

Moving in tandem, they took four long strides toward the Kaiju, which had come up onto land. With a command in the feedback cradle on her left hand, Mako engaged the rear thrusters and launched _Gipsy_ into the air. She came down with fists out, striking Leatherback’s head and pushing it into the ground.

Taking hold of one of the plates that protected the softer parts of its neck, they hit it again, and then again. It gave a gurgling rumble as they drew back. Before it could fully recover, they engaged the right arm’s elbow rocket, which sent _Gipsy_ ’s fist into the Kaiju’s face with extraordinary force. Leatherback was knocked onto its side, screeching as it fell.

It rose again with unexpected agility, catching Mako and Raleigh off guard with its next attack. Grabbing hold of a container loading crane, it swung it into _Gipsy_ ’s shoulder. As far as Mako knew, no Kaiju had ever used a tool in a fight; they had only ever used their own brute strength. That only served to reaffirm Doctors Geiszler and Gottlieb’s theories that the Kaiju were learning, adapting.

Regaining their balance after the hit, Mako and Raleigh grabbed handfuls of shipping containers and slammed them together against both sides of Leatherback’s head. Before it could rally, they picked it up under the arms, engaged the heavy torque, and heaved. Leatherback was heavier than any Kaiju on record, so they didn’t get far, but they managed to push it back enough to power up their plasma cannon.

The first few shots did little to stop the Kaiju, but they continued to fire until they had emptied the clip completely. After the twelfth shot, Leatherback’s belly was a mess of blue gore. Its ribs, broken and cracked by the plasma pulses, were visible. With a last groan, it collapsed at _Gipsy_ ’s feet.

Raleigh, firm: _I think it’s dead. But…let’s check for a pulse._

Mako held back a grim smile as they powered up the left-hand cannon and fired four shots into the corpse. The chest cavity collapsed completely, glowing orange from the heat of the plasma.

Raleigh, pleased: _No pulse_.

Mako, amused, but determined: _Come on. We need to find the other Kaiju before half the city is gone._

He acquiesced without hesitation, and they turned toward the metropolitan center.

Mako, adamant: _Wait. I have an idea._ An image of the barge that was dry docked just beyond the shipping containers flashed across their shared headspace.

Raleigh, darkly charmed: _What’s your batting average?_

Grinning, Mako moved with him over to the barge and picked it up by one end. The other they dragged behind them as they followed the trail of destruction into Hong Kong proper.

They found the Kaiju Otachi near the financial district, where it had leveled several buildings already. Once again engaging the torque, they lifted the shipping barge and bashed Otachi’s head with it. Blue blood flew from its mouth, spattering the nearby skyscrapers. They had gotten a few good hits in when the Kaiju’s prehensile tail whipped up and tore the barge from _Gipsy_ ’s grip. The tail then slammed into the Jaeger, knocking her back. As Mako and Raleigh got back up, Otachi disappeared into the city again, leaving them to follow.

Raleigh, annoyed: _I can’t pinpoint it_.

Mako, concerned: _It’s moving too quickly._

Raleigh, cautious: _Keep your eyes open._

They prowled the city, stepping over the bridges they could spare, though they knew even their lightest footsteps were cracking the pavement beneath them. Jaegers weren’t intended to fight on land and especially not in populated areas.

As they were scanning the streets, the glass façade of the building beside them shattered, revealing the Kaiju as it sprang at them. Mako and Raleigh swung at it and landed a few hits, but it kept a hold of _Gipsy_ and pushed her through several more buildings. It backed off only to open its maw and release a spray of acid. Mako and Raleigh dodged it, though barely. The skyscraper behind them began to melt.

Raleigh, tense: _We have to put that thing out of commission_.

Mako, agreeing: _It stores the acid in the pouch at its throat. Get rid of that and it can’t collect enough acid to use._

Reaching out, they sank a hand into the Kaiju’s open mouth, wrapping _Gipsy_ ’s fingers around its tongue. Otachi struggled and fought back with its tail, this time wrapping it around _Gipsy_ ’s left arm.

Raleigh, heated: _I’ll hold it. Vent the coolant on the left flank._

The J-tech in Mako made her hesitate for a fraction of a second. Venting the coolant would tax the Jaeger’s systems more as they heated up, putting them at risk in a prolonged fight. But if Raleigh’s instinct was correct, the super-cold gas would freeze the Kaiju’s flesh and make it release them.

Hitting a command on _Gipsy_ ’d HUD, Mako engaged the vent. As the coolant was expelled in a white cloud, crystals of ice began to form on the Kaiju’s tail, impairing its motor function. As the muscles seized, Mako and Raleigh twisted _Gipsy_ ’s arm. The frozen tail cracked and tore, freeing them. Bracing their hand against the Kaiju’s neck, they ripped off the acid pouch with the other.

Screeching in pain, Otachi surged forward and sunk its hind claws into _Gipsy_ ’s back and sides. Unable to bear its full weight, the Jaeger fell back. Otachi slammed her down hard before spreading its forearms into enormous wings. A single beat of them had debris swirling around _Gipsy_ , clouding Mako and Raleigh’s view ports. Their instruments blinked and screeched as they were lifted into the air.

Raleigh, anxious: _It’s taking us way too high. The conn-pod’s not pressurized. Our O-2 is depleting. And if we drop from this altitude, we’ll never survive the impact_.

Mako, assessing: _There’s a way. If we purge the fuel reserves, we’ll be able to slow down enough to keep us alive. In theory._

Raleigh, skeptical: _In theory. Even if it works, we can’t get out of this grip. Both plasma cannons are shot. We’re out of options._

Mako, confident: _Not yet._

Tapping in a command, she engaged the chain sword. Though she knew that Raleigh had seen it in her memories before, she still felt a surge of surprised excitement from him as the blade extended.

Fury and indignation surged through her as she drew the sword back. “For my family’s honor!” she cried, aloud. In tandem with Raleigh, she brought it down and cut through Otachi. The going was hard as the sword sliced through flesh and bone, but they didn’t pull away until the Kaiju was in two pieces and its claws had fallen away from _Gipsy_.

As soon as she was free, she began to fall. Altitude and balance sensors screamed.

Raleigh, concerned: _You really think a fuel purge will work?_

Mako, resolute: _It will have to. Otherwise, we won’t survive._

Raleigh, grim: _All right. When do we start the purge?_

Mako, considering: _A kilometer before we hit is our best chance._

Raleigh, alarmed: _That’s cutting it damn close._

Mako’s feedback once again conveyed that they didn’t have any other choice. Raleigh didn’t like it, but sent out a wave of trust and confidence. If Mako saw no other way, he believed her.

“One minute to ground contact,” _Gipsy_ ’s computer announced.

Raleigh, earnest: _Mako, if we don’t make it through this, I want you to know that I’ve never fought better than we just did. You should be proud._

Mako, grateful: _We did it together. And we’re going to make it. We have a mission to finish._

Raleigh, admiring: _Yeah, we do._

“Thirty seconds to ground contact.”

Mako, determined: _Engaging fuel purge._ She was slammed back into the drive apparatus as _Gipsy_ burned the remainder of her fuel and shot them up several hundred meters.

Raleigh, fearful: _We’re still coming in too fast. Brace for it!_

Mako watched in the HUD as they hurtled toward the ground. Panic shot through her veins, unavoidable as she faced the significant possibly of her death. In addition, she could feel the cutting terror that she would lose Raleigh.

The memory of the brief kiss he had landed on her head as she slept flashed through their headspace. Mako’s heart swelled at the tenderness of the moment, moved by the blatant gesture of affection.

Raleigh, sincere: _I care about you_.

A sense of calm washed over Mako. The alarms and rushing noise of the wind against _Gipsy’s_ hull faded away. Shy, but honest, she thought: _I care about you, too._

“Ground contact.”

Every bone in Mako’s body was painfully jarred as _Gipsy_ crashed into the ground. The Jaeger’s joints groaned as they struggled to take the impact. Crouched nearly five hundred meters into the ground, she came to a shuddering halt.

Raleigh, afraid: _Mako, talk to me. Are you all right?_

Mako, concerned: _Yes. Are you?_

Raleigh, reassured: _I’m going to be a walking bruise, but I’m alive. We’re alive._

Mako closed her eyes and breathed a sigh. The tension that had suffused their neural bridge eased as relief flowed between them.

“ _Gipsy_ , _Gipsy_ , come in. Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Tendo,” said Raleigh.

“Your vitals monitors are down. You two okay?”

Reaching out, Raleigh offered his hand. Mako took it. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

“Glad to hear it, brother. The Jumphawks are already on their way out to you. We’ll have you back on base in ten minutes.”

“Tendo,” Mako said. “Will you call up _Gipsy_ ’s maintenance crew? We have to start repairs right away.”

“Already done,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“No problem, Ranger Mori, but let Sato take it from here. You have a date with medical.”

Raleigh’s fingers tightened around hers as he sensed her exasperation. _He’s right. You can run all the system tests you want as soon as you’ve been checked out._

Mako, intrigued: _No Jaeger has ever been through what_ Gipsy _just did. I’ll never get the chance to see how she held up if I’m not there_.

Raleigh, understanding: _I get it, but Sato’ll take good notes. You need to take care of yourself first, Mako._

Glancing over at him, she saw the pleading look he was giving her. _Fine_.

“Choppers are in position,” Tendo said over the comm. “We’re hooking you up now.”

“Copy that,” said Raleigh. “See you at home, man.”

Mako winced as _Gipsy_ ’s limbs creaked under the strain of being airlifted. Raleigh continued to give her soothing feedback as they were carried over the harbor and back to the Shatterdome. Despite her concern about their Jaeger’s condition, she allowed herself to take comfort in his reassurances.

When they were finally docked back in their hangar bay and the conn-pod had been decoupled, Mako sensed disappointment from him.

Knowing she could read it, he thought, _I’m not ready to be alone in my head again yet. This is nice. Being with you._

Mako, embarrassed: _You, too._

Raleigh, happy: _We’ll be back in the saddle soon enough, though. Like you said, we have a mission to finish._

Mako, pleased: _Yes, we do._

 

* * *

 

“You have four bruised ribs, a burst blood vessel in your left lung, and a very minor stress fracture in your right foot, but all-in-all, Miss Mori, you’re in excellent shape.” The Shatterdome’s staff physician smiled at her.

“So, I’m fit for duty?” Mako asked, resting her palms on her thighs as she sat on the exam table.

“Absolutely, though I’d take it easy for the rest of the day.”

She frowned. Though nearly two hours had passed since she and Raleigh had disengaged from _Gipsy Danger_ ’s conn-pod, Mako was still far too keyed up to rest. Piloting a combat mission had been unlike anything she had ever experienced. She had too much energy coursing through her to consider taking the rest of the day off.

“I’ll try,” she said.

The physician nodded. “That’s all I can ask.”

“Doctor Yin,” she said before he could go. “Do you know where Mr. Becket went after his examination?”

“He and the Marshal are waiting for you outside.”

Pulling a sweater on over her undershirt, Mako quickly made her way out of the medical station and into the hall. She met her father’s eyes first. There was fierce pride there that immediately warmed her.

“Mako,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder, “you’re well?”

She smiled up at him. “I am.”

“Good.” Glancing at Raleigh, he said, “In all of my years fighting, I have never seen anything like what you two did today. Well done.”

“Thank you, sir,” Raleigh said. “Your daughter is one hell of a Ranger.”

If Pentecost was bothered by the informality, he didn’t show it. Instead, he said, “Yes, she is, Mr. Becket. And I should have listened to her when she said you two would suit as copilots.”

Mako’s cheeks burned. She gave a shallow bow. “Thank you, Sensei,” she said in Japanese.

Her father inclined his head. “You’ve both been through the wringer this morning. I want you to get some rest. That’s an order.”

“With all due respect, sir,” said Raleigh, “I can’t do that. You remember what it feels like to come back from a mission. The rush…”

One side of Pentecost’s mouth twitched up. “I do, Mr. Becket. Very well. Do as you like. Just make sure you’re ready when the time comes.”

“We will be,” Raleigh said.

With a curt nod, Pentecost turned and headed toward the lift. When he had disappeared around the corner, Raleigh turned to Mako and asked, “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I’m going to crawl out of my skin,” she replied. “I need to do something.”

“It’s the leftover adrenaline. I could never sit still after a fight.”

Mako knew that. She had felt his restlessness in his memories. He had found a number of ways to expend the energy that built up after a mission, though. Sometimes he had gone to the gym to hit the heavy bag for an hour. Other times he had found someone to fight with. But the most effective way to blow off steam he had found was sex. He had never had anyone who might have been considered a steady girlfriend during his tenure as a Ranger in Alaska, but he had had a number of women on whom he could rely for a good tumble when it was required.

Mako had never used sex as a way to relieve stress herself. She had always been more satisfied with session in the simulator, but after this fight, she had to admit that the prospect of slamming someone back against a wall and getting her hands on them had a certain appeal. She chewed her cheek to keep herself from imagining that that person was Raleigh.

“I still want to fight,” she said.

He grinned. “I wouldn’t mind a few rounds in the kwoon. Interested?”

“I should go help Sato with the diagnostics on _Gipsy_.”

“Later. You need to settle first.”

He wasn’t wrong. She was certain that even if she tried, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the tests she had to run. “All right. Let’s go.”

Unsurprisingly, the kwoon was empty when they arrived. Raleigh flipped on the lights while Mako took off her boots. She watched as he pulled off his sweater and undershirt. The scars from his last mission with his brother were faded, but still evident on his left bicep and along his ribs. He didn’t exactly like them, she knew, but he considered them a memorial for his brother. Mako found them strangely beautiful.

“Let’s go hand-to-hand,” he said as he stepped onto the mats. “I’m not really in the mood for bo.”

“Okay,” said Mako. She rolled her neck and pulled her arms over her chest to stretch out.

Raleigh bounced on his toes, raising his hands. Mako stopped a pace in front of him, taking up her own stance. There was no hesitation as they snapped into action. Mako struck first, catching him on the shoulder with her wrist. He countered easily, sliding away and then returning with an assault at her right side. She dodged it and caught his elbow. She pulled it down, trapping him against her.

Every time their skin made contact, Mako felt a flash of emotion: determination, aggression, exhilaration. She shared Raleigh’s feelings, enjoying the combat.

When they engaged again, the strikes and blocks were quick and precise. They drew close to each other, hit the ground, grappled, and then sprang apart again. They didn’t bother to keep score. Winning wasn’t the point. They just needed to get the fire out of their systems.

Twenty minutes in, Mako’s heart was beating hard and her breath was coming fast. A sheen of sweat shone on Raleigh’s bare chest, making his skin slick to the touch. More than once, it had allowed him to slip out of Mako’s grasp.

He laughed as he sensed her crossness. “You’ll just have to grab harder.”

Mako was tempted to roll her eyes, but kept her gaze on him, unwilling to look away even for a moment. Though she could read him when they touched, she still wasn’t sure what his next move would be, and she refused to allow him to best her.

Pressing forward, she grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. Their chests pressed tight together as she held him in place.

He grinned, ducking his head until his nose brushed hers. “That’s more like it.” His voice was low, almost a growl. It sent an unexpected shiver down Mako’s back. Heat flared to life in the pit of her stomach. He sensed it, of course. His eyes flashed darkly.

In the moment that Mako’s attention was diverted to them, he wrapped his leg around her calf and flipped her onto the ground. She cursed as her back struck the mats. Her frustration waned, though, when Raleigh pressed himself over top of her, pinning her arms above her head and straddling her thighs. Instead, she grew aware of all the place where their bodies made contact.

“You should stay focused,” he said, looking smug.

Mako struggled against his hold, scowling up at him. “I _am_ focused.”

Leaning closer to her, he spoke in her ear, “On the fight, or something else?”

The flame in her belly burned hotter, making her grind her teeth. “On my opponent.” Scissoring her legs, she rolled them over.

Raleigh laughed as she trapped his arms, pressing them into ground with her knees. “You have me at a disadvantage, Miss Mori.”

She lifted a brow.

“You may be totally focused, but I’m a little distracted.” The heat he was projecting was unmistakable.

Mako felt a jolt of desire. Scrambling back, she released him in an attempt to hide it. She took a few steadying breaths to get ahold of herself.

Across the mats, Raleigh sat up and looked her over. There was a line between his brows, and his mouth was pinched at the corners. Though Mako could no longer read him, it was plain that he wasn’t pleased that she had drawn away. She looked down, a little ashamed of her reaction to him.

She heard him sigh. “That’s enough for now, I guess. You feeling better?”

“Yes,” she said, though it was only half true. The rush from the combat drop had passed, but it had been replaced by the tension vibrating between them. There was no ignoring it anymore; part of their connection was built on physical attraction. Mako wasn’t certain how to process that. In close working relationships sex usually caused more problems than it alleviated. And there was no one she was closer to now than Raleigh.

Despite that, she couldn’t deny that the idea of pursuing him interested her. It had been years since she had been so overtly drawn to someone, and she found that she liked the way it energized her. Her senses were sharply attuned to him, and not only because of their emotional connection. She had no doubt that if they allowed themselves the chance to act on their attraction, it would be good for both of them. However, she respected him as a copilot too much to compromise their focus with sex.

Clearing her mind, she got to her feet and offered Raleigh her hand. He took it. His disappointment and frustration came through clearly. He had been enjoying himself as they fought, enjoying being close to her. He was irritated with himself for slipping up and ruining it with an offhanded flirtation. There was a note of apology in him, too, directed at her.

She chose to let it go unanswered. “Thank you for the fight. I needed it.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said. “I’m gonna hit the shower. You going up, too?”

“In a minute. I want to meditate for a little while.” She was sure he could sense her slight guilt at the lie, but she accepted it. In truth, meditation was beyond her; she just needed some distance from him for a while.

He nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll see you later?”

“Definitely,” she said, giving him a small smile.

Satisfied, he let go of her hand and left the kwoon.

Going to the rack of folded towels beside the mats, Mako wiped the sweat from her face. She needed a shower as well, but it would be a quick one. After all, she had work to do on _Gipsy_. It would a welcome distraction from whatever had just passed between her and Raleigh.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t see him again until dinnertime, when her stomach was finally growling loudly enough to draw her away from the system diagnostic reports she had been reading over all afternoon.

As she made her way through the mess, she received a number of smiles and a few congratulations on her victory over Otachi and Leatherback. She was unaccustomed to all the attention, but she was a Ranger now; Rangers were never ignored.

When she had retrieved her tray of food, she glanced around at the full tables. She didn’t bother to deny—even if just to herself—that she was looking for Raleigh. She found him seated across from Herc Hansen.

“Miss Mori,” Herc said, loudly enough to be heard over the conversations being had around the mess, “come have a seat.”

She took the empty place on Raleigh’s left.

“Hey,” he said, giving her an easy smile. She returned it.

“I hear you were up with _Gipsy_ all day,” Herc said to her as he tore off a chunk of his dinner roll and popped it into his mouth. “How’s she holding up after her trip through the lower atmosphere?”

“She’s in excellent condition,” Mako replied. “The cooling systems were taxed heavily during reentry, but none of the essential components melted. Only a few plastic casings suffered. The crew has already replaced them.”

Herc shook his head. “You’ve got a solid Jaeger there. Not sure _Striker_ would have made it through.”

Mako thought the same, though she didn’t say so. The new Jaegers were lighter and composed of metals that were more susceptible to changes in heat and pressure than the Mark-3s were. It slowed them down some compared to the Mark-4s and -5s, but it had likely saved her and Raleigh’s lives.

“ _Gipsy_ wouldn’t be in the shape she’s in without you, Mako,” said Raleigh. “She’s never run smoother.”

She hid her flush in her cup of water.

“So,” said Herc to her, “how did your first drop feel? There’s nothing quite like it in the world.”

“It was amazing,” she said. “Simulations don’t even come close.”

“You’re right about that,” Herc said. “How was the Drift? From the fight you had, it must have been good.”

“Better than good,” said Raleigh. “Tendo told us it’s one of the strongest connections he’s ever seen. And I agree with him. Yancy and I were a good team, but with us it’s…better.” He slipped his arm around Mako’s shoulders and pulled her companionably against his side.

Normally, she would have been caught off guard by the gesture, but she was distracted by the feedback she sensed as Raleigh’s thumb brushed lightly against the skin of her neck. There was sincerity, contentment, affection. The tension that had built up between them in the kwoon was absent. Mako was relieved, but just slightly disappointed. She tried, however, not to communicate that to Raleigh.

Herc, who had known Mako for many years, raised his brows as he looked between her and Raleigh. He recognized, too, that it was out of character for her to allow herself to be drawn close to someone else in full view of everyone in the mess.

Slipping away under the auspices of returning to her meal, she asked him, “How do you remember your first mission?”

“Like it was the day my life really started,” Herc replied. “Stepping into the conn that first time felt like it was exactly where I was supposed to be. Before I was a Ranger, I was with the Royal Australian Air Force. I loved flying, there’s no doubt about that, but being in a Jaeger was like coming home.”

“You started piloting _Lucky Seven_ ,” she said.

He nodded. “Mark-1. She was a tank, built like _Cherno_. She weighed twenty-five hundred tons and moved just fast enough to keep up with the Kaijus. Hit like a freight train, though.”

“What was your first drop like?” Raleigh asked.

“It was me and my brother Scott back in those days,” Herc said. “We were one of the first teams to come out of the Academy after the war started in ’13. We deployed in Sydney in April of ’15 against Himantura. Still the strangest Kaiju I’ve ever seen. Something like a stingray with legs. Hell of a swimmer. It almost got by _Lucky_ more than once, but Scott and me managed to put it down in about an hour.”

“I remember seeing the sims of Himantura back at the Academy,” Raleigh said. “It _was_ unlike any other Kaiju.”

“Well matched with _Lucky_ , though.”

“How long were you with her?” Mako asked.

“Four years,” he said. “One with Scott as my copilot and the next three with Akachi. She was decommissioned after the drop in Manila with _Gipsy_ and _Horizon Brave_. I got the assignment to _Striker_ then. And Chuck took over as my copilot.”

Mako tamped down a flare of anger at the mention of Chuck. What he had said to her and Raleigh after their first Drift still bothered her. “Do you miss her?” she asked Herc. “ _Lucky_ , I mean.”

“Of course. She was a damn fine machine. I was sorry to see her go to Oblivion Bay.” He took a drink of water. “ _Strike_ r’s done right by me, though.”

“I caught some of the footage of your last drop in Sydney,” said Raleigh. “You did a hell of a thing taking down that Kaiju. Really impressive.”

“Thanks. It was a hard fight. Should have been two Jaegers on it at least.”

Raleigh frowned. “After what happened this morning, I don’t know how the UN can cut the program. Without us Hong Kong would be rubble.”

“I know,” Herc sighed. “But even if we had a full ‘Dome, we’d never be able to keep up with the Kaijus coming up from the Breach. We’ve got to put an end to it for good or we’re done for.”

Mako felt a chill run down her spine. Unconsciously, she moved her hand under the table until it rested on Raleigh’s. His feedback was stained with dread as well, but he sent out some reassurance for her benefit as he threaded his fingers through hers.

“Well,” Herc said, placing his hands either side of his tray, “I’ve got to get going. Strategies to lay out. What are you two up to for the rest of the night?”

“I’m going up to play some cards with Tendo,” Raleigh said. “Texas Holdem.” He raised an eyebrow at Mako. “We could use a third player.”

Though she knew she still had work to do, she decided that, for once, it could wait. “Okay.”

Raleigh grinned and squeezed her hand. She allowed her pleasure and fondness to flow across to him unhindered. When she felt a flash of heat from him as she had that morning in the kwoon, she didn’t retreat. Instead, she gave him a spark in return.

His chest rose with a sharp indrawn breath. He radiated surprise.

 _There’s something here_ , Mako thought as she conveyed her emotions. _You’re not afraid of it, and neither am I._

“Okay, then,” Raleigh said, seemingly a little wonderstruck. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Mako nodded. “I’m following you.”

 

* * *

 

She knew it was another dream because she was standing on the opposite side of the drivesuit room; Raleigh’s side. As she reached out to unzip her circuitry suit, she did not see her own hands, but his: wide palms, long, blunt-tipped fingers. This was his memory, then, not hers.

“Look, Mako,” she said, though it was Raleigh’s voice she spoke with, “just because our first time out wasn’t easy doesn’t mean we won’t link up just fine next time.”

Glancing up through Raleigh’s eyes, she looked across the room. She could see herself pulling her arms from the sleeves of her circuitry suit. Her back was to him, which allowed him to look for a moment longer than he might have if she had been facing him.

As she watched herself, she could feel how much Raleigh admired the smooth skin of her back, the curve of her waist down to her hips as she pulled the suit over them. When she eased the base layer down over her legs, leaving her buttocks and thighs bare, she could sense Raleigh’s conflicting emotions. There was desire burning clean and warm, but it was tinged with guilt. Knowing he wasn’t supposed to be looking at her as he was, he turned away again.

Mako, from her vantage point inside his head, was equal parts embarrassed and amused as she felt Raleigh adjust himself to account for his reaction to seeing her nearly naked.

“That’s not going to happen,” she heard herself say. The disappointment in her tone was evident.

Raleigh’s anger flared as he said, “The Marshal can’t just ground you.”

“He can,” said Mako from across the room. “And he will.”

A few choice words about Pentecost flashed through Raleigh’s mind as he pulled on his pants. Aloud, he said, “No. You’re my copilot now. I won’t ride with anyone else.” Determined, he turned and reached for her. Taking her by the shoulder, he spun her until she faced him.

 _Strange_ , thought Mako-the-dreamer. She didn’t remember him doing that.

“You felt the Drift,” he said, strident. “You know how strong it was. We’re good together. _Really_ good.” He lifted a hand to her cheek, brushing her hair aside. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

Mako was absolutely certain he had not said that in reality. This memory was altered, changed. She knew that the mind did not have perfect recall, but this was not a small discrepancy that occurred naturally as the clarity of the memories faded over time. This was a whole different scenario; a fantasy.

“I want to,” she (the Mako Raleigh was seeing) said, “but—”

Before she could finish, he bent his head and kissed her. The shock of it sent Mako-the-dreamer reeling. The edges of her vision blurred and wavered, making her dizzy. As if she were awake and standing, she reached out to steady herself. Her hands made contact with warm skin.

Opening her eyes, she saw that she was no longer watching herself, but back in her own body, feeling Raleigh’s lips on hers. Her palms were firmly planted on his chest, though she could not decide if it was to keep herself upright or an attempt to push him away. If it was the latter, it was halfhearted at best and quickly fading as she slid her arms up around his neck.

Though one of his hands remained at her cheek, the other went to her waist, pulling her against him. She went happily, pressing herself against his chest. Opening his mouth slightly, Raleigh ran his tongue along the seam of her lips until she parted them. He made a deep, satisfied sound as their tongues met.

Fire shot through Mako’s veins. Even though she was clinging to him, she wanted to get closer. The thin tank top she wore was a barrier she wanted gone. Raleigh, it seemed, agreed. He tugged her top out from the waistband of her pants and pressed his palms to her skin. She arched her spine as he traced it with his fingertips.

Mako’s heart was pounding hard and loud in her ears. She could feel Raleigh’s echoing it, each beat in sync with hers. His emotions—a rush of need and want—were thrumming alongside her own desire.

Recalling his memory of a particularly good kiss, Mako did her best to recreate it. She nipped at his lower lip, tugging gently with her teeth before releasing and delving back into his mouth. His response was immediate; she felt it both physically and emotionally. Passionate hunger radiated from him as he grasped her waist tightly, lifting her onto her toes.

He pulled back slightly, brushing his nose against hers as he landed brief, light kisses on her lips. She smiled into them, knowing that he was giving her what he knew she liked. Moving away from her mouth, he followed the line of her jaw down to the tender skin of her neck.

“Mako,” he said, “I want you.”

“I know. I feel it.”

He traced the outside of her ear with the tip of his tongue, sending shudders through her. “I wanted you to hear me say it. And to hear you say it back. I need it.”

“I want you, Raleigh.”

“God, yes.” Grasping her thighs, he guided them around his waist. He carried her back to the bench on his side of the room and sank down onto it.

From her place in his lap, Mako could feel him hard against her. Tingling at the contact, she rolled her hips into him. He groaned and reached for her tank top. She raised her arms to allow him to pull it over her head. He made quick work of the bra she wore beneath it, releasing the front clasp and pushing it off over her shoulders. The moment her breasts were bared to him, he swooped down and took one of her nipples into his mouth. She cried out, the sensation careening down between her legs.

She folded her knees beneath her so that she could reach between them to unbuckle Raleigh’s belt. She fumbled with it a little before it gave way, giving her access to his fly. She unzipped it quickly and slid her hand below the waistband. She found steel and soft skin when she wrapped her fingers around him.

Taking her by the chin, he brought her back to his lips. She kept her hand between them, learning from the sounds me made how he wanted to be held, caressed. As she found the right pressure, he said her name against her mouth.

She was reluctant to let go of him, but she wanted to get out of the rest of her clothes. Using his shoulders to steady herself, she set her feet back on the ground. His hands at her waist, he pulled her between his legs and pressed a line of kisses down from the space between her breasts to her belt. He released the clasp deftly and then the button. He had not yet lowered the zipper all the way when Mako began to push the fatigues down over her hips.

“Incredible,” Raleigh mouthed against her stomach as he slid his hands onto her bare buttocks. “Feeling you want me.”

He eased her fatigues down her legs until they pooled at her feet. She stepped out of them, kicking them away. He knew perfectly well what she looked like naked; he had seen her memories of looking herself over in the mirror. But she could sense that having her bare _for_ him made him ache.

“God, you’re perfect,” he said.

She took a stuttering breath as his fingers brushed the juncture of her thighs. His exploration was gentle and slow, but every touch sent sparks up her back. “Raleigh, please.” She felt his own desperation as the words left her mouth.

He rose up off the bench just enough to get his pants off, shoving them down his legs. She looked him over hungrily as he discarded them.

“Come here,” he said, pulling her to sit astride him again.

She went more carefully this time, conscious of where she would need to be to bring him into her. Taking himself in hand, he guided her down. She moved slowly, allowing herself to feel all of him. Sensation flowed between them. Mako could feel his satisfaction at filling her, his pleasure when she enveloped him. She knew he could sense her reveling in the way she stretched to accommodate him, enjoying the pleasant discomfort at the intrusion.

They stilled when he was finally seated fully inside her, both letting the moment cement itself into their memories. Leaning into him, Mako kissed his lips. He pushed his fingers into her hair, cupping the back of her head. Gently, she rolled her hips, creating the friction they both yearned for.

As they fell into a steady rhythm, their voices rose and fell in time with their movements, reverberating around the room. Raleigh nipped lightly at her neck, then soothed the skin with his tongue. She dragged her short nails down his back as she inhaled the clean scent of his hair. Quiet endearments in Japanese slid past her lips as she began to move faster. He bucked up in response, burying himself deep.

Sweet, agonizing pressure began to build between them. It crackled like static electricity, making the hair at the nape of Mako’s neck rise.

“Don’t stop now,” she said, even though he could read her.

“Never,” was Raleigh’s growled reply.

Just when the feeling was becoming too much to bear, Mako hit her peak. Loud and unabashed, she cried out. She pinched her eyes closed as the waves wracked her body. Raleigh followed her a few seconds later, burying his face in the crook of her neck as the muscles of his legs went taut beneath her.

Her eyes still shut, she found his mouth and kissed him. After a time, they drew slowly apart, though their foreheads remained pressed together.

“Stay with me, Mako,” he said.

She slid her fingers into his hair. “I’m here.”

“Then open your eyes.”

When she did, he was gone. So was the drivesuit room. In its place were her dark quarters, the only illumination coming from the clock that showed the time to be 0416. Sighing, she fell heavily back against her pillow. It had been years since she had had such a vivid sexual fantasy. In fact, she could not remember one half as real as this one had seemed. Though she knew it to be an illusion, she thought she could still smell the mix of sweat and Raleigh’s shampoo.

Abandoning sleep for the night, she rolled out of bed and made for the bathroom. She squinted at the brightness of the fluorescent light as she flicked it on. When her pupils had adjusted, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Unsurprisingly, she looked tired. Turning on the faucet, she splashed cool water over her face.

Shivering slightly, she went over to her wardrobe and pulled out a pair of sweatpants. As she took off the gray shorts she had been sleeping in, she saw that they were nearly soaked through. Apparently not all of her body’s reactions had been imagined. Tossing the shorts into the laundry, she took a moment to clean up and then donned the sweatpants.

She was not yet awake enough to get any kind of work done, so she filled the coffee pot with water and poured it into the machine. She put three large scoops of ground coffee into the filter and sat down to wait.

Rubbing her temples, she tried to reason out how Raleigh had so thoroughly invaded her subconscious. It had to be the Drift, of course. She had started the dream in Raleigh’s head, which was only possible because she shared his memories. But why the memory changed to fantasy…

It could be that her mind processed his physical reactions to her, ran them against her own responses to him, and simply made the jump to the next level: acting on their attraction. Mako had no illusions about her interest in him physically, but she had not seriously considered sleeping with him. They were just finding their rhythm as copilots. The last thing they needed was to have that balance upset by something as trivial as sex.

All right, maybe trivial was the wrong word. No matter how few strings were attached to a sexual relationship, it was never ‘trivial.’ Still, it was far from a priority. They had a mission to concentrate on. Giving it anything less than their full attention would compromise the success, and that was inexcusable.

The coffeemaker made a sucking sound, indicating that the water in the reservoir was almost gone. Craving a cup, Mako got to her feet. Before she could take a step, though, she heard a knock at the door.

Her brows knit. It was too late, or early really, for anyone to need her. If there was an emergency—another Kaiju attack—she would have seen a red alert appear on her console. Anyone from _Gipsy_ ’s maintenance crew would have called. There were only two people in the Shatterdome who would come to her quarters unannounced: her father or Raleigh.

Going to the door, she disengaged the lock. The hinges creaked as she pulled it open. At the foot of the steps was Raleigh, his hair tousled and faint impressions from the creases of his pillowcase still visible on the skin of his cheek.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Did I wake you up?”

“No.”

“Can’t sleep either?”

Mako shook her head. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Yeah. I’d love some.”

She stepped back to allow him to come inside. He closed the heavy door behind him as she went to the coffeemaker and picked up the pot. Fortunately, the two cups she kept in her room were both clean. Taking one, she filled it and held it out to Raleigh.

“Thanks.”

As he took the mug, his fingers brushed against hers. Mako started as she felt the flash of emotions: gratitude, warmth. Beneath that, though, was an undercurrent of uncertainty and reluctance marked with embarrassment. When she looked up and met his eyes, she saw the question he was holding back reflected there. So, she asked it.

“You dreamt it, too, didn’t you?”

He swallowed. “Drivesuit room?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, I did. And I, uh, couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards.”

“Neither could I,” said Mako. Pulling out a chair at the small table near the coffee maker, she sank down onto it. She blew on her coffee to cool it as Raleigh sat across from her.

“Sometimes Yancy and I used to have the same dreams,” he said. “It wasn’t all the time, but every now and then.”

“What kind of dreams?”

Raleigh shrugged. “Fights from high school, days out with our parents when we were kids.” He raised his brows. “Never anything quite like what I—we—just dreamed.”

“Well,” said Mako, “he _was_ your brother. I am not.”

Raleigh’s eyes flicked over her. “No, you’re definitely not.”

Her stomach tightened with a mix of nerves and pleasure. She liked the way he had appraised her, admired her. Hoping to hide it, though, she took a sip of coffee. Raleigh didn’t look fooled, but he chose not to say anything, which she was grateful for.

“Do you think this happening because of the Drift?” she asked as she set her mug back down on the table.

“The dreams? Yeah. But the rest of it…” He paused, looking down at his coffee. “It wasn’t as intense before we Drifted, but it was there. For me anyway.”

Mako knew that; she had seen as much in his memories, felt his attraction to her when their minds were linked. But, there was something about hearing him say it aloud that made it seem more real.

“It was there for me, too,” she said, feeling heat creep up her neck and into her cheeks.

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time this has happened,” Raleigh said. “I’ve heard of other Rangers that ended up…well…”

“Inside more than their copilot’s head?” Mako asked.

Raleigh laughed. “Yeah, that’s about right.” Glancing up at her, he said, “Is this going to make things complicated?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“I don’t either. I mean, we can just keep going like we have, right?”

“Right.” She wasn’t exactly sure that that was true, but she certainly hoped it would be.

“Good,” he said, leaning his elbows on the table. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You don’t,” she said. “I’m more comfortable with you than I have been with anyone. And I’ve only known you for three days.”

“Almost four,” he said, smiling one-sidedly.

“Still.”

“I know what you meant. By most standards we’re almost strangers.”

Her fingers tightened around her half-empty coffee mug. “But we’re not.”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s weird, isn’t it? It didn’t seem strange with Yancy. I knew him my whole life, so it wasn’t much different to see into his head. But you and I didn’t know a thing about each other. Now we know it all.” Looking up, he met her eyes. “I guess I never asked, but are you okay with that?”

Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve got all my issues in your head now. Some of them aren’t pretty, and you didn’t ask for them.”

“In a way, I did,” she said. “I wanted to be a Ranger. Taking on your copilot’s memories is part of the job.”

“Fair enough,” said Raleigh. “And I guess if you’re still able to talk to me after you’ve seen everything in my head, we’re going to be fine.”

Reaching out, Mako touched his wrist. “You’d be able to feel it if we weren’t.”

He set his opposite hand over her fingers, transferring his contentment. “It’s still pretty incredible that we can do this. And I don’t think it’s going to fade. Do you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you want it to fade?”

He projected nervous uncertainty. “What would you think if I said I’d miss it? That I like it?”

“I like it, too,” said Mako.

“You do? I thought maybe you’d rather keep what you feel to yourself when we’re not in the Drift.”

“If I want privacy, I don’t have to touch you.”

Raleigh’s feedback came with some disappointment.

Mako brushed her thumb against the knobby bone of his wrist, soothing. “You’re more used to touch than I am. And you are more open than me. It’s not a problem. It’s just taking me some time to adjust.” She gave him a small smile. “Thank you for being patient with me.”

“I don’t mean to be pushy about it,” he said. “I’ve just always been like this, especially with my friends.”

Mako looked at their hands where they lay on the table. “I’ve never had many friends. Schoolmates, colleagues, but not friends.”

Raleigh traced her jaw with the back of his knuckles. “You do now.”

She exhaled as the edge of his thumb brushed her lower lip. A vision of dipping her head just slightly and taking his finger into her mouth flashed across her mind.

Yes, Raleigh was a friend to her, but there was no doubt anymore that he could be far more than that.

“The mess is opening up in a few minutes,” he said, his hand falling away from her. “Want to get some breakfast? I know you’ve got another day of work to do. Better start early, right?”

Mako knew he was teasing her a little, so she narrowed her eyes at him. He winked and slid his chair back from the table. He made to release her hand, but she held him fast. She didn’t let go until the doors of the lift opened on the nearly empty mess hall.

 

* * *

 

They were just finishing up their oatmeal and eggs when Mako’s tablet lit up with a new message from her father. He was requesting her presence as soon as she was able.

“Everything okay?” Raleigh asked.

“Probably,” she replied, “but I need to go.”

“All right. Will you be in your office later?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “See you.”

She quickly delivered her tray to the wash station, and then headed out toward the Marshal’s office. She tugged on the hem of her sweater to straighten it before she knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Pentecost was sitting at his desk when she crossed into the room. Though he didn’t smile outright—clearly this meeting was business—the corners of his eyes crinkled just slightly.

“Mako, good morning. Please sit.”

Going to the chair across from his desk, she sat on the edge, her back straight and hands folded in her lap. “Good morning, Marshal.”

“Doctor Yin in medical cleared you yesterday, but I’d like to know how you’re feeling today. There can be side effects to the Drift that don’t set in immediately. I want to know that you’re not experiencing anything unusual.”

Mako swallowed. She felt perfectly fine, but she was certain that the emotional connection she shared with Raleigh outside of the Drift could be considered “unusual.” They had yet to tell anyone about it, and she was unsure that she should without speaking to him first, but she had never lied to her father and was not prepared to begin now.

“There is something,” she said, considering the words carefully. “But it didn’t start yesterday.”

“Tell me,” said Pentecost.

She did, though she omitted some of the more intimate details of the connection; namely the nature of the dream they had shared.

When she was finished, her father sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “I believe you’re aware of the ghost-Drift phenomenon.”

“Yes, sir. But I always thought it was a myth.”

“Well, you know there’s truth to it now,” he said. “Most Rangers never experience it in any form, but those that do seem to have different types of connections. I was told by some that they could anticipate what their copilot was going to say. Others seem to speak and move in tandem. I once served with a team that claimed they shared dreams, but as far as I know, it takes years of Drifting together for any of the symptoms to manifest.” His brow furrowed. “It did for Tamsin and I.”

Mako’s eyes opened wide. “It happened to you?”

“Yes, but it came on slowly. At first, it was just muddled impressions of emotions. We hardly noticed them. But they began to become clearer in the next few years. By the time we completed our last mission, just a light touch could tell me everything going on in Tamsin’s head.”

“When we visited her, you would always hold her hand,” said Mako, recalling the days she had spent in Hawaii. “I thought it was just to comfort her, but it was because you could read her feelings.”

Pentecost nodded. “We still had to speak aloud, of course, but it wasn’t always required to get our points across.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No,” he said. “Tamsin wasn’t interested in being studied like a lab rat. I respected that.”

Mako looked down, guilt weighing on her conscience. “May I ask you to keep this in confidence, Marshal?” she asked. “I will tell Raleigh that you know, but I do not want it to go beyond the three of us.”

“It won’t be mentioned outside of this room again,” he replied. “As long as it doesn’t compromise your focus on this mission.”

“It will not, sir,” said Mako.

She expected to be dismissed then, having nothing else to report, but her father surprised her by asking, “Do you trust Mr. Becket?”

Without hesitation, she answered, “I do. He’s a good man.”

“Five years ago I would have said that he was a good Ranger,” said Pentecost, “but hardly a man. He didn’t act like one. But losing his brother changed him.”

“Deeply,” said Mako. “It took great strength to overcome the grief and pain. He is incredibly resilient.”

The corner of Pentecost’s mouth twitched down in a minute frown. “You’re becoming fond of him.”

Mako blushed. “Yes.”

“It can be easy to feel close to your copilot, but remember that he is that first and foremost. We cannot afford for either of you to be distracted right now.”

Raleigh’s words from the day before in the kwoon echoed in her head: “You may be totally focused, but I’m a little distracted.”

She had tried to convince herself that she was not, but the dream they had shared suggested otherwise. However, her father was right; she could not let anything get in the way of the mission. When it was over—if they returned in one piece—she and Raleigh could settle what was between them.

“We’re ready for combat whenever we’re needed, Marshal,” she said.

Pentecost looked satisfied with that. “Good.”

“Is there anything else, sir? If not, I should return to work.”

“No, Mako, there’s nothing else. You may go.”

She stood, and with a bow, took her leave.

 

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, she was bent over her desk making notes on one of the blueprints of _Gipsy_. The time had passed almost without her notice. She had been completely consumed by the diagnostic reports and test results. Specialist Sato had run the most basic checks while she had been away, but she had been conducting more in-depth analyses. She had at least six more hours of it ahead of her, too, before she delivered the final technical instructions to the restoration crew.

Glancing out the window of her office, she saw them at work. Rigged in climbing gear, they crawled over _Gipsy_ like ants. Sparks from their welding tools poured down and disappeared as they hit they hangar floor at the Jaeger’s feet. They had been at the repairs since she had arrived back in the Shatterdome, taking shifts to ensure that work was getting done around the clock. Mako was grateful to them for their continued dedication.

A knock at the door drew her attention from the hangar. “Come in.” She had expected Sato or one of the other J-techs, but instead it was Raleigh who entered. He was carrying two laden mess hall trays, so he pushed the door open with his hip. Mako got hurriedly to her feet and took one of the trays.

“Thanks,” said Raleigh. “Had a hell of a time juggling both of these up here.”

“You didn’t have to bring me lunch,” Mako said.

“It’s almost three o’clock. I figured you’d forgotten about it.” He eyed her. “You tend to do that when you’re busy.”

“You saw that in my memories.”

Pulling a chair over to the side of her desk, he set his tray down and said, “Yep. You don’t always take good care of yourself.” He sat down and put his hands behind his head. “But now you have me to make sure you do. And I’m not leaving until you eat something.”

Resigned, Mako sat and pulled her tray over. The fare was nothing special—sandwiches and sealed packages of fruit floating in juice—but when she saw it, she realized that she _was_ hungry.

“Thank you,” she said to Raleigh as she picked up half of her sandwich.

He swallowed a bite of fruit and said, “No problem.” Looking down at the desktop, he scanned the blueprints lying there. “What’re you doing?”

“Making sure the systems can handle the pressure of the water when we go for the Breach,” she said. “Jaegers have never been tested in a deep-water environment before.”

“You think _Gipsy_ will do all right?”

“She should, but we won’t know until we get down there.”

Raleigh chewed thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t know a thing about Jaeger maintenance.”

“Of course, you do,” said Mako. “You’ve been in my head. You know what I know.”

“That doesn’t mean I could do what you do. Most of this is way beyond me.”

“You underestimate yourself,” she said. “You were a good student when you set your mind to it.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but I’m not even close to your level. You know you’re brilliant, Mako.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“It’s the truth. Everyone in this ‘Dome knows it.”

She was flattered, but returned to her sandwich without reply.

“So, how close is _Gipsy_ to being ready for our next drop?” he asked.

“She should be finished by tomorrow.”

“Do you know _Striker_ ’s status?”

“They’re still working on her electrical circuits. There was a lot of damage to repair after the EMP.”

Raleigh nodded. “That’s got to be complicated.”

“It is,” she said, “but _Striker_ has a good crew. They’ll take good care of her.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He took a long drink of water. “So, what did the Marshal want this morning?”

Mako swallowed. “He wanted to know how I—we—were doing after the drop.”

“And?”

“I had to tell him about us, about the connection we have outside of the Drift.” She braced herself for his reaction, concerned that he would disapprove of what she had done. But when he spoke again, he was perfectly calm.

“What did he say about it?”

“That it’s a ghost-Drift.” She took a breath. “And that it happened to him, too.”

Raleigh’s brows rose. “Really?”

She nodded. “But it took years for it to start. He’d never heard of it happening so fast.”

“So, we’re still an anomaly.”

“It could be that it’s happened before, but no one has ever talked about it. My father and his copilot didn’t.”

“I guess you’re right, but I doubt it.”

She did as well. The more she learned about the Drift, the surer she became that her bond with Raleigh was wholly different than those between most Jaeger pilots.

She jumped as Raleigh’s fingers tickled the sensitive spot behind her ear. Turning, she shot him a glare. He knew she hated being tickled.

He looked unrepentant, however, saying, “You’re thinking too hard. Give yourself a rest for a couple of minutes.” Leaning closer, he touched her again. She felt his mischievous amusement and almost laughed at how boyish his pleasure was. He was like a schoolboy pulling the hair of a girl to get her attention. It was endearing, so she steeled herself against the ticklishness and let him keep teasing her.

“It’s not fun if you want me to do it,” he said, though he didn’t pull away. “You’re supposed to struggle a little. Maybe even run. How else am I supposed to catch you?”

“You want to chase me?” she asked.

His gaze flicked around the room. “There’s not much space in here, but we could make it work.”

His playfulness was catching. Unable to resist, Mako pushed her chair back and sprang up and away from him. She backed toward the far corner of the room. “Fine. Come and get me.”

Raleigh’s smile was predatory as he slowly stood. He moved around the side of the desk, trailing his fingers along its edge in mock nonchalance. Then he surged forward, his long legs eating up the space between him and Mako.

She managed to slip away and dash around by the window. Raleigh pursued her. He nearly grabbed her wrist, but she snatched it out of his grasp just in time. Darting over the chair he had abandoned, she pushed it back toward him. It slowed him for a moment, letting her get back around to the opposite side of the desk. Papers crinkled beneath her fingers as she rested her palms on it.

“Fast,” said Raleigh. “But not quite fast enough.”

Planting a hand firmly on top of the desk, he vaulted over it and landed beside her. Surprised, she didn’t bother to run.

“Gotcha,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his chest.

Mako cursed in Japanese and wriggled in protest. Raleigh laughed, squeezing her tighter. She had the means to make him release her—she was an expert martial artist, which he knew—but she wouldn’t use those skills. She may have made a show of resisting, but she wanted to be held captive. She wanted to be close to him.

Moving his hands up along her sides, he pressed his fingertips into her ribs. No longer able to keep it in, she burst out laughing. She pinched her eyes closed and writhed, gasping as he tickled her relentlessly.

“Stop! Stop!” she cried, though both of them knew she didn’t mean it.

“Ask nicely and maybe I’ll consider it,” he said in her ear.

“Please, Raleigh,” she said, punctuating each word with a breathy laugh. “Please let me go.”

“All right,” he said. But instead of releasing her, he took her by the waist and spun her to face him. He gave a small growl and lifted her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck to keep her balance as he spun around in a couple of tight circles. Before long, he had her dizzy and laughing again.

When he finally let her down again, his cheeks were flushed pink and his eyes were bright. Her arms still at his shoulders, Mako paused to admire him. His features were well-defined, his brow high and nose straight. His jaw was cleanly cut, though it was not too harshly angled. There was a smoothness about his face that was reminiscent of the boy he had been, but it was fading as the lines grew sharper with age.

“What do you see?” he asked, quiet.

“You,” she replied. Gently, she brushed her thumbs against the soft hair at the nape of his neck.

He pressed his hands into her lower back, bringing her against him. “And you like seeing me.”

She blinked up at him. “Yes.”

“Mako, I—”

The clearing of a throat behind them cut him off. They both turned sharply to see Haru Sato standing in the doorway.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I apologize for the interruption, Mori-san, but you asked for the fluid synapse system reports as soon as they were finished. They are.”

Mako didn’t immediately process what he had said. Her head was still feeling light, and she could barely focus on anything but the drumming of her heart in her ears. She wasn’t certain she could have found the words to reply even if she had tried. Fortunately, Raleigh stepped in and spared her that embarrassment.

“You must be Specialist Sato,” he said, letting go of Mako and striding toward the door. He offered his hand. “It’s good to finally meet you. I’m Raleigh Becket.”

“The pleasure is mine, Ranger Becket,” said Sato. “Allow me to congratulate you—both of you—on your successful fight last night. It was most impressive.”

“Thank you,” Raleigh said. Glancing back at Mako, he gave her a curious look.

Gathering herself, she stepped up next to him. “Yes, thank you, Sato-san.”

He smiled. “You did your family great honor,” he said in Japanese.

Though Mako knew Raleigh could understand, he didn’t give any indication of it. Instead, he touched her lightly on the back and said, “Well, I’d better get going. Let you two work.” Taking the trays from Mako’s desk, he went past Sato and out of the office.

She watched his back until he was gone, acutely aware of the feeling of loss he left in his wake. She hadn’t yet been ready to see him go.

“Again, I apologize if I interrupted you,” Sato said. “The door was open. I didn’t expect to disturb a private moment.” The look he gave her was knowing and a little sly.

Mako could have argued that they had been doing nothing that required privacy, but she did wish that the door had be closed and that they had been left in peace. She wanted to know what Raleigh had been about to say.

“We were finished,” she said to Sato. “Please, show me your report.”

 

* * *

 

“I promise, _Godzilla Raids Again_ is just as good as the first movie.”

“If you say so,” said Mako, crossing her arms over her chest as she settled back against her pillow. She had brought it from her bunk this time so that Raleigh could use his own. Not having to share wouldn’t necessitate that they sit as closely as they had when they watched _Godzilla_ , but Mako wasn’t worried. If she wanted to sit near to him, she could do it without using the pillow as an excuse.

“Here we go,” Raleigh said as he flopped down on the bunk beside her. He adjusted the pillow behind his back, but then lifted his arm to make space for her. She gladly slid into it.

“So, if they killed the monster in the last movie,” she said, “how are they going to bring it back to life so that it can ‘raid again?’”

Raleigh wrinkled his nose at her and squeezed her shoulder. “You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?”

“Fine,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. Her annoyance was feigned, of course. It didn’t matter to her if they were sitting through two hours of kwoon footage of this year’s Jaeger Academy graduates; she was just happy to be there beside him.

It was strange, she thought, that she would be able to find contentment in the midst of war. Of course, they had been fighting since she was a small girl, and she knew that life continued on despite the danger humanity faced from the Kaiju, but she and Raleigh were on the very front lines. They should have been consumed with the demands of the conflict: prepping for the upcoming mission, checking over their Jaeger, planning with Pentecost and the Hansens. And they _had_ done those things, but as Specialist Sato had once told her, “War is long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief moments of chaos.” It was only since she had met Raleigh, though, that she had spent those long stretches doing anything other than working.

A week ago, Mako would not have believed that she would have allowed Sato and the third shift maintenance crew to take over for her no matter how exhausted she was, let alone consider leaving her post in order to waste time watching a film. But she had, and she had done it happily.

For the first time in many years, Mako felt herself slowing down and allowing her attention to wander to something else beyond the Jaeger Program. Raleigh was a part of it, yes, and it had brought him into her life, but when they were together, she could see beyond the Shatterdome, beyond the next mission.

 _The last mission_.

Her sole purpose for half her life had been to maintain and pilot Jaegers, but now it was all coming to an end. Even if this last drop—Operation Pitfall her father had called it in their briefing that day—didn’t succeed, the program was coming to an end. Her partnership with Raleigh would end with it, no matter the outcome of the mission. There would be no more need for Rangers.

She felt a sharp stab of panic at that thought. Raleigh had just come to her; she wasn’t prepared to see him leave. The idea of being away from him made her chest clench and her breath stick in her throat.

She had told him that she hadn’t had many friends. It wasn’t because she hadn’t wanted them; she had. But, she had been afraid. She had lost all of her childhood friends along with her family when Onibaba had destroyed half of Tokyo. Though she had found a new father in Pentecost, he had instilled in her early that the people she loved could be taken from her again without warning. He had said that she needed to be prepared for that. Afraid of going through the pain she suffered when her parents died, she resolved to keep herself at a distance from all the people in her life. If she didn’t love them, losing them wouldn’t be as terrible. But now she had Raleigh, and the very thought of losing him cut her to the core.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” He was looking down at her, concern in his eyes.

“Nothing,” she said.

“You can’t do that, you know,” he said. “Not with me. Something’s bothering you. I can feel it.”

She took a slow breath. “I’m just wondering what’s going to happen when this is all over.”

“Yeah,” said Raleigh. “I’ve been thinking a bit about that myself. Honestly, as a Ranger you live in the past—in memories—and the only thing in the present is the next fight. I’ve never really thought about the future…until now.” He gave her a half smile. “I never did have good timing.”

“What do you think you will do?” she asked. “If we close the Breach.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t really know. I’m a good pilot, but I can’t do much else. Part of me is afraid I’ll have to go back to the wall. Or something like it.” He shrugged the shoulder that Mako wasn’t leaning on. “On the other hand, maybe the PPDC will hand me a fat pension and I can spend the rest of my life woodworking.”

Mako raised a brow. “Woodworking?”

“Or fixing old cars. Shooting empty beer bottles off my porch. The stuff old, retired men do.”

“You would get bored,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe,” he conceded, “but right now six months in my family’s old cabin doing nothing but watching the snow fall sounds pretty damn good.” He laid a hand softly on her thigh. “Hey, if we make it through this, you have to come out to the cabin with me. For as long or as short as you want, but I’d like you to see it.”

Mako had seen the cabin in his memories and in the dream she had had a few nights before. It was more rustic than she was used to, but it had looked cozy and inviting. Or perhaps that was just how Raleigh remembered it from his boyhood and those feelings were bleeding into her imagination. Whichever it was, she thought that warm fires in the potbellied stove and glasses of hot buttered rum shared as they sat on the old, green sofa in the living room sounded wonderful.

She could see them spending long days out in the snow as he taught her to ride snowmobile trails and skate across the small pond that he had once fallen into. She imagined waking the smell of fresh coffee and pancakes. She would wrap a blanket around herself and go barefoot into the kitchen. Raleigh, wearing jeans and warm socks, but no shirt, would be standing at the stove. He would smile when he saw her and hold out his hand. When she took it, he would pull her to him and land a soft kiss on her lips. He would taste of maple syrup.

“I’d like to go with you,” she said, putting her hand over top of his.

He interlaced their fingers and brought her knuckles to his mouth. “Then it’s a deal,” he said as he kissed them.

Though it was hardly more than a brush of his lips against her skin, it sent a tingling sensation all the way up her arm. The room around them grew hazy at the edges until Raleigh was the only thing in focus. He held her gaze, neither of them breathing.

Mako could feel the need in him, his desire to close the remaining distance between them until there was nothing keeping them apart. In the Drift there was no void between them, but physically there was still a chasm. In that moment, Mako was more willing to cross it than she ever had been before. For once, she wanted to put all of her fear aside and simply fall into him.

When he cupped her cheek with his free hand, she was sure he was going to kiss her, but instead he said, “We’re missing the movie.”

The screeching sound of sirens announcing the return of Godzilla to Tokyo cut through the room, bringing Mako back to herself. “Sorry,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to do that.”

His smile was slightly pained, and his feedback was tinged with regret. “No,” he said. “No, we wouldn't.”

With an inward sigh, Mako nestled back against him and turned back to the screen.

 

* * *

 

It was late when she returned to her quarters, and she was tired. Raleigh, too, had been yawning as he told her he would see her in the morning. After they closed their doors, she had changed quickly into the shorts and tank top she slept in and crawled into bed. She was asleep within a few minutes.

The dreams started again not long after she had closed her eyes. They were disjointed at the start, just jumbles of images and memories, but as a scene of a lecture during her junior year of high school faded, she found herself standing by the sink in a small kitchen. The dishwater was just draining as she looked up and out the window. Outside, the ground was covered in freshly fallen snow, which glinted in the sunlight. The tree branches were elegantly layered with white.

Mako dried her damp hands on the towel that hung on the handle of the stove and then made her way into the adjoining room. She immediately recognized the interior of the Becket’s cabin. This time, however, there was no sign of Dominique, Jazmine, or the boys. In fact, the only sounds were the creaking of the floorboards beneath Mako’s feet as she walked and the pop and crackle of the fire in the potbellied stove.

Passing through the living room, she went into a part of the cabin she had not seen in her previous dream. On the opposite side of the house from the room that Yancy and Raleigh always shared was the master bedroom. The queen bed took up nearly all of it, but there was space enough for a small chest. One of the drawers was open, and the leg of a pair of jeans hung over the side. A few other discarded pieces of clothing lay around the room, including a burgundy sweater, a pair of black pants, and a bra with a bit of delicate lace on the straps. The bedsheets and blankets were in disarray, clearly having been shoved unceremoniously aside. Mako smiled as she looked over the mess. Normally, she would have put everything back in order straight away, but something about the disorder pleased her.

Going by the bedroom, she entered the smaller space just beyond it. The bathroom was not richly appointed, but it provided a toilet that flushed and a narrow shower enclosed in glass. Mako went to it and turned on the water. It sputtered for a moment and then flowed smoothly. It always took a minute or two for the heater to pump warm water in, so she took the time to slowly undress. She folded the oversized hooded sweatshirt she had been wearing neatly, laying her fleece pants on top of it. Her socks and underwear followed.

She sighed as she stepped into the shower and let the water spill over her shoulders. She had learned to enjoy the isolation and rural charm of the cabin, but she was immeasurably grateful that she didn’t have to sacrifice hygiene for the peace and quiet. She took a bar of sea salt soap, its surface slightly rough with the crystals, and began to scrub her body. As she shampooed her hair, she noted that it was a little longer and that the streaks of blue that she had worn at the front of her bobbed cut for years were gone.

Washing the soap away, she heard the heavy thump of a door closing over the hiss of the shower. The sound of footsteps and the creaking of the floorboards followed it. Though the glass of the shower was opaque, Mako saw a blurred figure moving into the bathroom. Unbothered, she poured a bit of conditioner into her palm and worked it into her hair. A few moments later, cold air rushed over her as the shower door opened. She drew in sharp, surprised breath as a pair of chilly hands touched her waist. She felt a rush of affection, though the emotion was not hers.

“Sorry,” said Raleigh. “It’s cold out there.”

“You could have warmed up before you grabbed me,” Mako said.

“I could have, but I didn’t want to. Not when you look like this.”

She huffed a laugh. “Naked?”

“Exactly,” he said, kissing the place where her shoulder met her neck.

Leaning against his bare chest, she slipped her arm around the back of his head and into his hair. “Did you cut enough wood for tonight?”

“And tomorrow. It’s supposed to storm later and I don’t feel like chopping any in the middle of a blizzard.”

“We were supposed to go cross-country skiing tomorrow,” said Mako as she massaged his scalp.

“Mm,” he hummed. “Well, we’ll have to find something else to do inside.” Spreading the fingers of one hand wide across her stomach, he drew the other up to her breast. “I can think of a few things.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, though her eyes had fallen shut as he caressed her.

Nuzzling her ear, he said, “Sure. Checkers…charades…poker.”

She tugged his hair reprovingly, making him laugh. She felt the rumble of it against her back.

“Don’t like that?” he said. Mako pressed her lips together and let her head fall back against his shoulder as he circled the peak of her breast with his thumb. “Then how about a long morning in bed, maybe a massage? We can work up an appetite for breakfast after that.”

“Better,” she said. Turning around in his arms, she pressed a kiss to the place above his heart. Her hands trailed up and down his back, appreciating the shape of the muscles there.

“I aim to please,” he said as he hugged her close.

She rested her head against him, sighing.

A rumble in the distance startled her. “What was that?” she asked, looking up.

Raleigh was frowning. “I don’t know. We should—”

Another deep sound cut him off. It was followed shortly by another, harsher noise, almost a growl. Mako felt fear rising within her. She knew those sounds; she recalled them vividly from when she had stood on the street in Tokyo, sobbing as she stumbled through the wreckage of cars and bodies.

“No,” she breathed as she clung to Raleigh. He wrapped her up tight, but it couldn’t protect them as the roof of the cabin was torn away and the great maw of Onibaba descended and closed around them.

 

* * *

 

Mako sat up straight in her bunk, her heart racing and her eyes wide despite the blackness of her quarters. Her skin was clammy, and she had begun to tremble. The panic had been so real, so intense.

She stumbled as her feet hit the cold floor, but she managed to grab the edge of the table to steady herself. Moving in uneven jerks, she got to the door and scrabbled for the lock. When it gave way, she shoved the door open and all but fell into the hall. Before she had even gotten halfway across it, Raleigh’s door swung wide. His face was white and marked with the vestiges of fright. He had had the same nightmare.

He caught her up in his arms as she came up the steps into his room, closing the door behind them. “You’re here,” he said, his words slightly muffled as he pressed his mouth against the crown of her head. “You’re safe.”

She fisted her hands in the soft cotton of his shirt, hiding her face. Her eyes stung with tears she did not want him to see. He stroked her back until she had stopped shaking.

“Come sit down,” he said.

“I need a glass of water.”

“Let me get it.”

“No, I’m all right,” she said, releasing her hold on him and stepping back. He let her go.

Unsteadily, she made her way over to the sink. She filled a plastic cup with water, drained it, and then filled it again. When she turned back, she saw that Raleigh was sitting at the edge of his bunk, his elbows resting on his knees.

“Drink,” she said, holding out the cup to him.

He emptied it and set it aside. Looking up at Mako, he held out his hands. He wrapped them around her waist as she stepped between his thighs. She cradled his head against her stomach, gently running her fingers through his hair. She could feel his residual fear, but also his relief that it had all been a dream. Beneath that was a vein of affection for her that burned alongside hers for him.

“Stay here tonight,” he said.

Mako tensed slightly.

“Just to sleep, I promise.”

“Okay.”

Taking her hand, Raleigh drew her down onto the bunk. He slid back toward the wall to make space for her. She lay down beside him and let him pull the blanket up over them. Since they only had the one pillow, he rolled onto his back and offered her the soft space in the crook of his shoulder. She settled into it, sliding a hand over his chest. He wrapped both arms around her.

“You’re safe with me,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“As safe as two Rangers can be,” she said quietly.

“Yeah.”

Turning her face just slightly, she pressed her lips to his skin. “Goodnight, Raleigh.”

“Goodnight, Mako.”

Comfort flowed between them as they drifted into sleep.     


End file.
